Caitlin Kittredge - Bone Gods

The Order of the Malleus didn’t reside in any sort of posh modern flat near Canary Wharf, or a sinister, brooding Victorian narrow house watched over by iron gates crawling with ivy and Gothic sensibility. The address was on one of the side streets running up to the south side of Regent’s Park in Marylebone, a nondescript row house with a blue door and two small granite Chinese dogs guarding the steps.

Pete ignored the devil’s-head knocker, slamming on the wood with the flat of her hand. “Open this fucking door!” She used her best copper voice, and it rattled back from the row of flats opposite. Curtains twitched aside up and down the street.

Five seconds, then ten, then thirty went by without a response. “Oi!” Pete resorted to kicking, the steel of her boot leaving an ugly black wound in the door. “Morningstar! You know why I’m here, you creepy bastard!”

“Maybe we should … do something that isn’t this,” Lawrence suggested, from where he stood on the pavement. Pete cast around, then picked up one of the dog statues and walked back to the shiny black BMW parked in front of the row house. She swung hard and deliberate, letting the weight of the stone carry itself.

Windscreen glass exploded into the street, and the car’s alarm began to whoop. “Ethan,” Pete shouted. “Get your arse out here!”

The car alarm cut off, and the door of the house opened up. “Petunia Caldecott!” Her mother appeared on the stoop, arms crossed. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

Pete tossed the statue aside. “Nothing that concerns you, Mother.” She pointed at the house. “I know he’s in there. What’s wrong, he can’t come himself? Has to send his overdressed rent boys to be the hard men?”

Juniper threw up her hands. “Oh, Petunia. You always had a flair for being overdramatic.”

“You’d know about dramatic entrances and exits,” Pete said. “Listen, Mum, you can prance about with these fuckwits all day long, but I want to talk to Ethan and I’m going to carry on smashing things that belong to him until he comes out.” She folded her arms. “Is that dramatic enough for your taste, Mother?”

“You’d think somebody nearly thirty would have learned not to be such a disagreeable little brat,” Juniper snapped, her serene Mother Superior composure finally wearing thin. Pete was gratified that she still had the temper that had caused her to bawl out MG for staying away all night and chuck the occasional lager bottle in Connor’s direction when he snapped at them once too often because of his job.

“It’s all right, Junie,” said a voice from the dark of the doorway. Morningstar appeared, a deal less imposing without the vampire coat and hat, but still with a glare and craggy hands that could crush Pete’s skull into shards. “We weren’t expecting you so soon, Miss Caldecott,” he said. His eye drifted to the smashed car and he sighed. “You know, you might have simply rung.”

Pete gave him a tight smile. “I don’t work for you, Ethan. We had this talk.”

Morningstar guided Juniper back over the threshold. “Go inside, dear.” He came into the street, picked up the statue, and set it back on its pedestal. “As I recall that conversation, we agreed you did want to do something for me, Miss Caldecott. If not for your sake than for your dear friends.” He tipped a salute to Lawrence. “Here’s one of them now.”

Lawrence made a move to Pete’s shoulder, but she waved him off. “He’s a bigot with fancy dress,” she told Lawrence. “This, I can handle.”

“Not him I’m worried about,” Lawrence muttered. “Your mum’s a lot scarier.”

“Fuck off,” Pete said, and mounted the steps. Morningstar gave her one of his knife-edged smiles.

“So kind of you to stop by.”

“Believe me,” Pete said. “I’m not having kind thoughts, Mr. Morningstar.”

“Ethan,” he said, shutting the door behind her. “Call me Ethan.”

Morningstar’s house was furnished in the same bland, vaguely classical style as the outside. Persian rugs muffling the floors, furniture with feet, and dour portraits of a man who looked like the genuine witch-burning article hanging in the front hall. Morningstar flicked a finger at one. “Sir Percival Morningstar, a several times great-grandfather of mine. Disposed of seven sorcerers in his day.”

“Must have been the toast of his inbred village,” Pete said acidly.

“I don’t hate you, you know,” Morningstar said gruffly. “Nor people like you.”

“Love the sinner?” Pete guessed.

“And burn the sin,” Morningstar agreed. He led Pete to the rear of the house, unlocking a door with a skeleton key he took from a ring in his pocket. “The Order of the Malleus is not what you think, Miss Caldecott. Despite your unfortunate first impression, we’re here to cure, not to torture. We kill as a last resort, to protect the Order.”

“Yes, well,” Pete said. “Some of us manage it without killing at all. ’M not going to pat you on the head.”

“How many people have you killed as a law officer?” Morningstar asked. “And how many do you think Mr. Winter caused the demise of before his misdeeds finally caught up with him?”

“We’ve been over this ground,” Pete said. “You found it full of pitfalls, remember?”

Morningstar gestured her through the open door but Pete balked. She wasn’t sure Morningstar wouldn’t simply shoot her in the back if she annoyed him excessively. “After you,” she said.

“Paranoia is an unfortunate side effect of magic on human brain tissue, you know.” Morningstar took a seat behind the sort of desk the headmaster of a snooty prep school would use. It suited him. Pete stood rather than use one of the straight-backed chairs facing Morningstar, as if she were a bloody truant. The office was surprisingly spare and far less grim than the rest of the Order’s house. One row of books paraded across the shelf behind Morningstar’s head, and an arty black and white of Hadrian’s Wall was the only decoration. Definitely a man’s office, a man spare and hard through all his deeds. Pete all at once didn’t feel so right about smashing his car.

“I’m careful,” she said. “And I learned that a long time before I admitted the Black was real.”

“Even so.” Morningstar put his feet on his desk. “The human mind was not meant to contain the energies of the Black. I strongly urge you to pull back before you do yourself permanent damage, Petunia.” Morningstar took a cigarette from a silver case at his elbow and lit it, but didn’t offer one to Pete.

“You’re one to talk about permanent damage,” Pete said, yanking Nasiri’s remaining photo from her bag and tossing it on Morningstar’s desk. “No need to send your boy, Ethan. I was coming for a chat anyway.”

“Oh?” Morningstar exhaled thin twin streams through his nose. “Regarding?”

“Let’s cut the shit, shall we?” Pete said. “Carver got killed working some nasty magic, yeah, but these cuts were made over years. And it wasn’t death magic being worked on him, it was something worse. He was arse deep in necromancy and you knew. What happened, Ethan? Did your dog break his chain?”

Ash grew on the end of Morningstar’s fag, forgotten. “You’ve learned a lot in a short time, Petunia. I’m impressed. But Gerard’s proclivities don’t concern you. He was one of us, sinner or not.”

“Did you know what he was doing?” Pete said. “Tell me the truth or I swear to your musty old god I’m going to break a lot more than your car.”

“I very much doubt that,” Morningstar said. Pete gritted her teeth. Morningstar didn’t seem the slightest bit uncomfortable that she was in his house. If anything, he appeared bored, smoking and loosening his tie as if she were a problem he wouldn’t have much trouble solving.