Bone Gods

by Caitlin Kittredge

  She wasn’t taking the case because of Morningstar. She was doing it for Ollie, and for the very real possibility that some idiot necromancer had bitten off more than he could chew and kicked off a carnival of the grotesque and homicidal with the spell he’d left on Carver’s body. Demons and things of their ilk didn’t need much of an invitation to kick open the gates of Hell. Usually a name was enough.

  The CID unit for Camden, which included six detectives counting Ollie responsible for serious crime, was housed in a single cavernous gray room crowned with buzzing fluorescent lights at the Holborn police station. Pete bypassed the front, where a uniformed officer waved her on. She was still recognizable here, if not for her great detectiveing or her status as Connor Caldecott’s daughter, then for the press coverage of her last case before she’d unceremoniously quit the force. Every law officer in Camden Town knew she’d been Ollie Heath’s partner, the bird who dropped off the map and down into the dark side. The dark side, of course, being superstition and mumbo-jumbo, the one thing most coppers hated even more than shit coffee and national holidays involving pyrotechnics.

  Pete found her way to Ollie’s station, where she paged through the top of the snowdrift of papers that permanently occupied his desk. The Carver case had a fat autopsy report, and Pete flicked the cover open with her nail, looking at the large, high-res photos Nasiri had snapped before the cutting. The wounds on Carver still sent a spike straight through her head, even in 2-D form, and she flipped the file shut again.

  “Snooping?”

  Pete felt her heart fly up, slam against her chest, and fall back down. “Jesus fucking Mary Magdelene in a boat, McCorkle! Didn’t your mother teach you not to sneak?”

  “Sorry,” he said with a shrug, settling himself at Pete’s old desk and putting his feet up. “Think your mouth is even rougher than Heath’s, you know?”

  “I taught him his first dirty word,” Pete said. “I’m like a proud mum.” She looked pointedly at McCorkle’s feet. His shoes were pristine, and she could see her elongated, glaring face in the toes. They’d get covered in shit and blood soon enough, and then she thought McCorkle might be a bit more tolerable. “Is Ollie in? I need to speak with him.”

  McCorkle dug out an evening Times from two days past and rattled it open. “He ain’t here. Nipped out to get supper.”

  Pete bristled when she found herself facing rumpled newsprint, then reminded herself McCorkle was newly promoted and therefore arrogant. He’d learn. Or somebody would put their boot up his arse for being a prissy twat. “Did Ollie say he’d be coming back?” she said, giving McCorkle the same tone she used on the neighbor boy when he threw his transforming robot toys against the door of her flat.

  “Might’ve,” McCorkle said absently, turning the page. “You can wait, if you like.”

  Pete sat in Ollie’s chair and took one of the biscuits from his righthand top drawer, crunching it just loudly enough to overshadow McCorkle rattling the paper. “Where’d you come over from, McCorkle?”

  “Paddington Green,” he said. “Missing Persons.”

  “They all get found, then?” Pete flicked her crumbs onto McCorkle’s side of the desk. He looked at them as if they were live ants, then folded the paper away. In a stolid, Norse way, McCorkle was nice-looking, Pete supposed. His forehead was too thick and his hair was shaped vaguely like a blond wire scrub brush, but the crushed-and-reset nose and the bulky neck-deficient torso would do it for some women.

  “You know,” McCorkle told her, ruining any goodwill Pete might have allowed him by opening his mouth back up, “if even half of what they say about you is true, you have no business being in this room.”

  “Oh?” Pete wondered if she was going to have to punch somebody else in the mouth. Punching people got very tiresome. Sherlock Holmes didn’t have to go around smacking skulls together.

  “No business at all,” McCorkle said. “I may not have a dad who was Supercopper, but I did the training and the time. And I sure as Hell didn’t leak sensitive evidence to an informant and then quit the squad to avoid censure.”

  “Is that what I did?” Pete said. The rumor varied. Sometimes she’d bollocksed her last investigation, sometimes she’d joined a cult. Most times she’d simply quit because she couldn’t hack finding four children catatonic and never catching the man who’d done it. Officially. The truth was somewhat more satisfying, but Pete wasn’t going to try and explain hungry ghosts to McCorkle or anyone else in the Holborn nick. She didn’t owe it to them. They’d talk no matter what.

  “That’s what you did,” McCorkle agreed. “Makes you a shit cop. Always were one, to my way of thinking.”

  Pete forced an expression that was simply nothing, not anger and not agreement. “Why aren’t you throwing me out, then? You too much of a saint to soil your good cop hands?”

  McCorkle put his feet down and booted up his computer, scrolling over to the HOLMES database and beginning to type in case numbers. “Heath likes you, you get a pass. He’s a good bloke.”

  “He is,” Pete agreed, as Ollie backed into the squad room with two bags of takeaway. She leaned into McCorkle’s half of the desk. “I wager you and I will see each other some day when Ollie isn’t a factor,” she murmured. “And then perhaps neither of us will have to be so polite.”

  McCorkle raised his nearly white eyes to hers. “Perhaps,” was all he said.

  “Oi, Pete!” Ollie said, dumping the takeaway on his desk. “Fuck you doing here? Homesick?” He pulled the wrap off his plastic fork and threw it at McCorkle. “Freddy, go eat at the kid’s table or something. Pete and I need to have a talk.”

  Pete gave McCorkle a cheery wave as he grabbed his food and slumped away, pouting. Ollie sighed and opened his kebabs. “Fucking twat. Wasn’t bothering you, was he?”

  “On the contrary,” Pete said. “He’s a veritable ray of sunshine.” She listened to the trill of phones and the click of keyboards, the inspectors and their detective sergeants and constables going about their day. “I’m making progress,” Pete said, before Ollie could ask. He dabbed at a spot of brown sauce on his shirt.

  “You close to telling me why this bastard got himself topped? Because his life is a blank fucking slate. Good schools, competent at his job, no dodgy tax shelters, bank balance not even enough for a night at the pub with a discount prozzie. Lived with his mum, for Christ’s sake.”

  “That what you needed to talk about?” Pete said, helping herself to a cube of beef.

  “Right,” Ollie said. “It’s a bit too perfect. Somebody that boring, you either expect them to do themselves in with Mummy’s sleeping tablets, or have a dungeon full of Estonian teenagers hidden under the back garden. But I’ve turned up shit, and that bothers me, because shit means I’ve got shit on who’d want him killed.”

  “He was definitely arse deep in black magic,” Pete said. “The symbols are necromancy, but for what I don’t know yet. Beyond that, all I can say is idiots who dabble in that sort of thing often find themselves dead or otherwise inconvenienced. Since Carver was the first to go, I’m betting he had something they wanted, or had served his purpose. Not sure what the purpose was yet.” Or his flesh-crafting friends had found Carver’s dirty secret. Pete wondered about that. The death felt like overkill, even for a traitor. There was purpose behind it, rather than punishment. And the power dripping from Carver’s corpse was something no socerer who wasn’t completely addled would allow to go to waste.

  Gerard Carver had died for something other than his penchant for deception. Pete wagered when she knew what, she’d know who.

  Ollie tossed his empty takeaway container into his overflowing desk bin. “You’re good, Pete. Always said, give you twenty-four hours and a cuppa and you’d solve the Lindbergh baby and the Ripper killings.” He folded his hands over his stomach. “The better one of us, you were.”

  “Don’t say that, Ollie,” Pete told him. She stood and collected her things, being quick about it. “I wasn’t a good cop. I quit.” />
  “Do you ever miss it?” Ollie asked, as Pete made her move to leave. The CID room didn’t feel welcoming and familiar any longer. Now she could feel the stares and hear the murmured conversations over the everyday sounds. She was a visitor, and an unwelcome one at that.

  “All the time, Ollie.” She turned her back and passed down the wide center avenue between the desks, which started at the door and ending at the big murder board where she’d put up her share of case notes. She turned her back to that too, and studiously ignored the stares of the working detectives as she left the station.

  CHAPTER 8

  Retrieving the Mini, Pete drove toward Kensington. She passed the red brick edifice of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the pavilion at the edge of Kensington Gardens, gold leaf gleaming in the late morning light against the nascent green of the foliage beyond, which had just begun to show signs of life after a winter that hadn’t done anyone, plant or human, any favors.

  She picked up Bayswater Road and circled in ever-widening loops through single-lane back streets leading to tourist-choked main roads until she found parking near Queensway. Threading her way through the gawkers and well-heeled locals outside the tube station, she climbed to Lawrence’s flat and knocked.

  Right now, Gerard Carver was the last thing on her mind, but she had to think about him. Thinking about her mother, or the Order, or what the Hecate had said just made her want to curl up and never leave Jack’s flat again. Murder was the saner option. Murder, she at least understood. Perhaps she could even do what Morningstar demanded, though she doubted it. She was opposed to turning over the necromancer responsible just on principle, even though the git probably deserved it. Morningstar was a sanctimonious twat, as only old, white Englishmen with the Lord in their corner could be, and she hated him reflexively, far more at the moment than Carver’s killer. But she owed Ollie answers, and needed something to leverage to keep him safe from the Order, so she hit the door again. “Lawrence! I know you’re bloody at home. You never leave.”

  After a moment of locks scuffling, the door opened. “Your knickers on fire?” Lawrence demanded. “Why the fuss?” He blinked when he really saw her. “Pete!”

  She managed to spread her hands and apply what she hoped was a charming expression. “Knew you were in. You’re fucking agoraphobic these days.”

  Lawrence stepped forward and yanked her inside and into the fold of a bear hug. “You know where I live, you feel like stoppin’ by. Why I need to go out?”

  “Get some sun,” Pete said, and poked his arm, which gave not an inch. “You’re looking positively Caucasian, Lawrence.”

  “Fuck off,” he said amiably, locking the door behind her and twitching a bindle of herbs and red thread back into place over the frame. “Glad you’re here, you and your little razor blade for a mouth. Beginnin’ to think you didn’t like me.”

  “Been busy,” Pete said, staying in the front hall while Lawrence went to his pocket-sized kitchen. In point of fact, she hadn’t seen him since the day Jack had gone. She’d wanted it that way. Lawrence was Jack’s best friend—which was no mean feat, considering the rapidity with which Jack alienated almost everyone he crossed paths with. Lawrence was as replete with memories as Jack’s flat. Plus, he was a decent bloke and a decent friend, and in the way of decent people would want to commiserate, give and get sympathy. He would want to remember Jack, and Pete didn’t have the strength to heap on any more memories.

  Lawrence came back with two tumblers full of thick, viscous green liquid and held her at arm’s length. “So. Miss Petunia. You blown back to my door—for what?” He grinned at her crookedly, teeth white enough for an advert. “I know you never be without trouble riding on your shoulder.”

  Pete decided blunt was best. Lawrence was at least too polite to throw her out. “I need you to tell me whatever you know about necromancy.”

  The smile and the warmth went out of Lawrence’s face, a candle covered with a jar. Taking a seat on the leather sofa, he drained his tumbler and offered Pete the other. She caught a whiff of something dead and sea-borne and crinkled her nose. “Fuck, no thanks. What is that shit?”

  “Seaweed,” Lawrence said, as if it were a natural thing to pour down your gullet. “Your loss. Might improve your mind, so you don’t go around askin’ about black deeds that’ll get you dead.” He took a joint from the mellowed ivory box at his elbow and offered it to her once the end was a cozy orange. Pete inhaled and passed it back. Like the Newcastle for Mosswood, it was a gesture of hospitality, the handshake of Lawrence’s mostly white witchcraft and Pete’s talent, which was no color she could discern.

  Lawrence dragged like a movie cowboy on a handmade cigarette and let the pleasant murk fill his sitting room when he exhaled. “Now,” he said. “I’ve gotta ask: Why a smart girl like you messing with necromancers?”

  “I didn’t mess with anyone,” Pete said. “They killed a bloke and left him in broad view in the center of the fucking British Museum, so they rather brought this on themselves.” She dug out her mobile and called up the photo. Lawrence’s hand-tended and magically coaxed pot at least blunted the edges enough that the damn thing didn’t give her a migraine, but she still held the mobile gingerly as she passed it to Lawrence.

  He whistled, and smoothed his free hand over his forehead. Lawrence was generally unflappable, but his pupils flexed as he examined the photo. He handed it back and took a quick, nervous drag. “This ain’t somethin’ you want, Petunia.”

  “I just need to know what they mean,” Pete said, snatching the fag back. “What kind of spellcraft they’re designed for. Who’d know enough about necromancy to carve them into a bloke’s torso in the first place.”

  “You think I know?” Lawrence barked a laugh. “I’m flattered you think I run with that kind of crowd, but truth? I’m a white witch. I stay clear of the bone-shaker’s business and gods willin’ they stay outta mine.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re strictly ballroom,” Pete said. “But you did spend twenty years being Jack’s best mate, Lawrence. Don’t take me for an idiot. You at least know who can tell me, if you’re concerned for your virtue.”

  Lawrence tipped his head back against the sofa. “Maybe I don’t wanna tell you because I know you’ll get yourself a whole lot more than trouble if you keep pushin’ this.”

  Pete set the remains of the fag in Lawrence’s ashtray and mimicked his pose, pulling her legs under her. “Maybe I’ll sit here, smoke all of your good shit, and generally make myself a nuisance until you change your mind.”

  “Fuck me!” Lawrence put his hands over his face and groaned. “You gonna get yourself killed just as dead as that dead bastard on your screen, you keep this up, Pete.”

  “Duly noted,” Pete said. “Who, Lawrence? You know I can tell.” She pointed to his jittering knee and giggled once. She wasn’t immune to the effects of a good garden witch’s product. “You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Normal people be thinkin’ that’s a good thing,” Lawrence muttered.

  “Yeah.” Pete stretched, lying out on the length of Lawrence’s decadently squashy armchair. “But you’re not fucking normal, Lawrence. Neither of us. So you gonna tell me, or am I going to park in your sitting room for the evening?”

  He lifted his head and glared at her before he sat up and rooted around in the occasional table that held the box. “Might know a bloke has the cipher to your nasty little drawings. Might. I ain’t promisin’.”

  “Wasn’t so hard, was it?” Pete asked him. She lit a Parliament to chase the sweet, sticky resin from her lungs and blew a blue halo. “More necromancers, then? When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way, sort of thing?”

  “No,” Lawrence said, looking at the scrap of vellum in his hand before passing it over. “They worse.”

  “Now I’m intrigued,” Pete said. “Worse than blokes who skulk about in the night buggering corpses for a thrill. How disappointed their mums must be.”

  “Listen,” Lawrence said.
“When Jack and I were much younger an’ less bright, he met this bloke who was … an antiquarian, I guess. Kind of a collector. Except not of anything you’d want business with. Things from the Black, books and worse. Makes Jack’s little cabinet up in his flat look like a set of fuckin’ dollies.” Lawrence rose and went into the kitchen again, but this time poured a dark rum from an umarked bottle into a jam jar and sat back down, swallowing the drink in one go. “Jack traded him for a medieval grimoire, I think, nothin’ special. It was the collector. He were a spook show. Wanted to write down the things Jack saw when he went off into the never-never, when the sight took its hold.” Lawrence looked into his glass as if he wished it would fill of its own accord. “Wanted his … visions, he called ’em, even though you ask me, were just Jack talkin’ his usual brand of bullshit.” He put the glass aside and rubbed his palms, resting his head against his hands and not looking at Pete, or indeed anything in the actual, visible dimensions of his flat. “Found out later he was an Antiquarian, capital A. They beings of—they’re made up of memories, you understand, eat ’em and use ’em to maintain. Collect memories and visions and grimoires and nasty bits in a place called the lost library. Not many souls, even on the black side, think it’s a real place, see? Supposed to be a collection like you ain’t never seen. Holding every manner of dark evil thing that any dark evil man has lost through history, includin’ their minds.” He extended the square of paper toward Pete, and she saw it wasn’t a scrap but a piece of stock, worn round at the endges. “Antiquarian gave Jack this,” Lawrence said. “In your time of dying, he told him. Wanted his memories and his spells. You call on him with that.”

  “And the Antiquarian,” Pete said, taking the card and turning it. “He’ll help me?”

  Lawrence folded his shaking fingers into a tent. “If you call what those things do help. Yeah. He do that, and gladly for you, I’m sure.”