Soul Trade

by Caitlin Kittredge

  Tombs.

  Jack balked, breath coming in a rusty wheeze, and Donovan tugged on him. “Now, now. I know it seems crazy, but they’re not going to follow us if we can make it to the fence.”

  “No…” Jack mumbled, eyes clouding over. Pete made it to his side as he swayed and started to fall.

  “Shit,” she grunted as his full weight hit her. “Jack, it’s all right. Stay calm.”

  “What on earth is wrong with him?” Donovan demanded, glaring at Pete as if it were her fault. Behind them, the three figures started down the back side of the hill, Patrick helping Bridget and Diana over the wall. They didn’t even have to run. They could take their time, let their prey see them coming.

  “He has second sight,” Pete said to Donovan. “Cemeteries are bad news for him. He can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”

  Jack’s breath was shallow, and he clung to Pete, fingers knotted in her shirt, head cradled against her chest. She rubbed the back of his neck, trying to hold back her talent, which clamored to take all of the energy stirred up by Jack’s visions and drink it down as it had soaked up Bridget’s magic moments before.

  “Fuck,” Donovan sighed. He took Jack’s other arm, easing some of the weight off Pete. “Of course my son is a psychic who can’t stomach the dead. Why would this be easy?”

  “Your idea to come here,” Pete grunted as they dragged Jack inside the rusted, half-fallen iron fence around the graveyard.

  “I didn’t know he was psychic, did I?” Donovan snapped.

  “Maybe if you’d stuck around for more than five minutes, you would,” Pete said. Donovan cocked his eyebrow, but he kept quiet as they passed among the headstones into the cool corpse-handed embrace of the mist that clung to Overton like spider silk to skin.

  Close in, standing amid the mausoleums and falling-down monuments, Pete saw what had so agitated Jack.

  Shapes moved between the tilted gravestones, shimmering as they drifted from place to place, long spectral fingers sinking into the earth before moving away. Some perched on the rooflines of the mausoleums, swaying with each breath of wind and watching the surrounding country with their blank silver eyes.

  “Wraiths,” Pete breathed. She found she couldn’t take her eyes off them.

  Donovan smirked. “I see Jackie doesn’t just keep you around for your looks.”

  On the hill above, the three figures slowed, then stopped a dozen yards from the fence, watching Pete with unblinking white eyes. Donovan shoved open the door of the closest mausoleum. A wraith drifted down from the roof, but Donovan hissed at it under his breath, and it drifted away.

  “Just a little aversion hex,” he said. “Make ’em think we’re not all full of soul energy for them to suck up like an espresso.”

  Pete let Jack down on top of the sarcophagus in the tomb, and he groaned before shutting his eyes and curling in on himself.

  “He going to man up, or is this an ongoing thing?” Donovan asked, folding his arms across his raven-colored wool coat.

  Pete ran her hand over Jack’s forehead, brushing sweaty lines of platinum hair away from his skin. She felt a stab of desperation, that knee-jerk need to do anything to make his pain stop.

  Except there was nowhere else to go, nowhere the children wouldn’t find them. It was the wraiths or die screaming. “Depends on how long we’re here,” she said to Donovan. “He can hold it back with the dead, but this is different.”

  There had to be twenty wraiths in the graveyard, ghosts that went up to eleven. Jack shuddered under her hand, scrabbling at it with his fingers until she laced hers in. “Shh, luv,” she soothed. “Just hold on and it’ll be over soon.”

  “Not soon,” Donovan said. “We stay here unless we want those wee little monsters to send us the way of dear old dad,” Donovan said. “They won’t come close enough for the wraiths to drain them, and the wraiths won’t go too far from the spirit buffet in the graveyard, so we’re all right for the time being.”

  Pete chewed on her lip. She didn’t think “all right” applied to any facet of the situation, but most of all not to Jack. “He can’t stay here.”

  “Poor little Jackie always did have a delicate constitution,” Donovan said. “Thought that boy would turn out more like me. I’ve looked just like him waking up from a hangover and I soldiered through.”

  “Listen,” Pete said, dropping her voice into Official Copper. “He’s an unusually strong psychic, and this place is a nightmare factory, so unless you want him to be catatonic and drooling on himself within the hour we need to find somewhere else.”

  Donovan grinned at her, which Pete found both infuriating and utterly familiar. It was the same kind of smile Jack had, when he thought he was in control of a situation. “Bossy little thing, aren’t you?”

  “I appreciate that you helped out with Dexter Killigan,” she said. “But that doesn’t make you the general.”

  “I think it does make me the man who saved your arse, seeing as it would be all full of zombie bites by now if I hadn’t thrown that little leg-locker hex,” Donovan said, grinning even wider. “Though I’d never let that happen. You’re far too adorable.”

  “I had it handled,” Pete said. “Need I remind you that I was the one who actually burned that bastard up?”

  Donovan pursed his lips. “You know, I’d like you much more if you didn’t frown.”

  “And I fancy I’d like you much more with a mute button,” Pete snapped back.

  “For the love of all that’s fucking sacred,” Jack groaned. “Will the both of you shut it? Me head hurts enough as it is.”

  Pete crouched at Jack’s side, examining him for signs that the sight was eating into his mind, permanently altering the pathways, making him unable to tell the dead from the living.

  The mausoleum was dim, the only light coming from the small, smeared window above the sarcophagus, but she could see that Jack’s skin had taken on a sick pallor, with spots of red on his cheeks and forehead. His eyes, though, were mostly clear, only rims of white encroaching on the blue. “This is not fucking comfortable,” he told Pete. “Help me up.”

  She got him up and helped him sit on the small rickety bench under the window. His ankle had swollen, and he favored it badly. Pete cursed to herself. You couldn’t run with a bum ankle, even if you had a place to run to.

  “You all right?” she asked softly, tilting her head at Donovan. Jack’s father looked like an older, paler version of his photo, long dark hair replaced by a short salt-and-pepper crop. He still carried himself ramrod straight, though, and still looked, in Pete’s estimation, like the world’s champion tosser.

  “’Course I’m not bloody all right,” Jack said. “Are you?” His brows drew together. “That Killigan bastard knocked you pretty bad.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Pete said. “He just jostled my head a bit.”

  “Not her vulnerable area, fortunately for you and I,” Donovan said, looking out the door of the tomb before shutting it tight. “I hope she’s magnificent in the sack, Jackie, because so far all I’ve heard is mouth, mouth, mouth.”

  Jack didn’t speak the word of power fully—it was more of a hiss of air and anger—but the hex smacked Donovan like a fly swatter and flung him backward into the wall of the tomb. Mortar and loose dirt rained down around him as he crumpled to the floor.

  “Good boy!” Donovan said, clambering back up with a wince. “I see somebody managed to teach you a few tricks.”

  “You talk to her again and the last trick you learn will be how to swallow your own teeth,” Jack said, trying to stand. He didn’t make it, and he sank back down hard.

  “By all means, let it out,” Donovan said. “Got a lot of feelings pent up in that bleached blond head, Jackie? Let me have it, son. Let’s get all the daddy issues on the table, since you clearly didn’t learn to let bygones be bygones from that hysterical mess of a mother. Knew I never should have left you with her.”

  “You’re right,” Jack snarled. “You sh
ouldn’t have. But I always assumed you knew you were leaving me in a miserable shithole with a pill-popping teenage mother to be smacked about and forgotten and not fed. Always thought you just didn’t give a shit.”

  Pete stayed quiet, watching Donovan carefully to make sure he didn’t return the hex, ready to leap on him and kill him with her bare hands, if necessary, if he made a move on Jack.

  Not just for the threat he posed now. For everything that was on Jack’s face as he looked at his father. The resemblance was stronger the more she looked, but Pete thought the eyes were what arrested her the most. Donovan’s eyes were Jack’s eyes, crystal blue with the same cold depths that could never be plumbed.

  “You’re a grown man,” Donovan said. “So I’m going to skip explaining myself, you’re going to skip the daytime talk show crying bit, and we’re going to get straight to the apology.” He drew himself up. He was broad where Jack was skinny, but their height and build were similar. Pete squeezed Jack’s hand as Jack growled something obscene under his breath.

  “I’m sorry, Jackie,” Donovan said. “I didn’t do right by you. But I’m here now and we’ve got a situation, so what say we both act like the adults we are and fix this mess?”

  “I say take the apology and shove it up your arse until it squeaks,” Jack shot back. “This working out like you hoped? Do all your families welcome this load of shit? What number am I?”

  “First and last,” said Donovan. He sat down on the edge of the sarcophagus with a sigh and rubbed a hand over his chin. Pete watched all the arrogance ran out of him like used dishwater. “You’re me only son, Jack. Your mum must have told you that.”

  “She didn’t tell me much,” Jack said. “’Cept to fuck off down to the corner and get her some more fags.”

  “I thought she’d be all right,” Donovan said, his voice so quiet that it would have been lost if not for the echo of the small stone room. “She was on medication when I left. I thought she could handle it.”

  “She was always on medication,” Jack said. “Neighbor’s medication, boyfriend’s medication, the type you buy from the hoodies who hang around the car park behind the ASDA. That was sort of the central fucking issue in me childhood, Dad.”

  “You act like you think I wanted it to end up this way,” Donovan said. “It’s going to sound like a load of shite cliches, but I was young, Jackie. I did a stupid thing.”

  “’M really not interested in a touching moment replete with swelling violins,” Jack said. “So why don’t you kick on about whatever it is you really want and then leave me in peace?”

  “What’s happening in this town?” Pete interrupted. Donovan and Jack could be going in circles all night. “You called them worms, those things at the Killigan house,” she said. “Not demons. You know something.”

  “I know a little,” he said. “Mostly what I extrapolated after I found out that poncey cunt Jeremy Crotherton had stuck his nose in it.”

  Donovan knew Crotherton. That certainly made Pete look at him in a new and not entirely flattering light.

  “You and Jeremy were mates, then?” she said. Keeping it casual. Letting Donovan lead. If there was one thing she’d learned about Winter men, it was that they liked to think they were the ones in charge.

  “Better question is how you knew Jeremy,” Donovan said with his snakelike smile. He held her there, pinned to the spot, but Pete swallowed the knot in her throat and lied.

  “Just of him. Heard he’d gone missing along with the other folks when we came looking for the demon.”

  “That the sort of thing you two do for a romantic date, then?” Donovan cut his eyes between Jack, who curled his lip at his father, and Pete, who tried to paste a smile on her face. “Hunt up a demon summoner?”

  “Freelance,” Pete said. “Local constabulary hired us.” She banked on Donovan having the same aversion to anything carrying a badge that his son did, and sure enough he gave a snort of derision.

  “Working for civilians, like this was that TV show about the wizard with the talking skull and the twatty name.”

  “Pays the bills,” Jack said. “But I suppose you get your bankroll from our substantial family fortune, right, Dad?”

  “You’re funny,” Donovan said. “Must get that from your mum.” He shed his coat, hanging it on one of the hooks meant to hold a vase of flowers, and wandered the permieter of the small room, reading the names engraved on the wall. “No, I make money the old-fashioned way, by taking it from mages who are too lazy to do grunt work like tracking a demon summoner themselves.”

  “So who sent you here?” Pete said.

  “Crotherton’s family,” Donovan said casually. “Jeremy and I were school mates.”

  “I hope they weren’t banking on an open casket,” Jack muttered. “Because old Jeremy is passed on with a side of undead, extra crispy.”

  “I imagine I’ll be a bit more delicate when I break the news,” Donovan said. “But when I tracked Jeremy here, I realized that this wasn’t any ordinary sort of possession.”

  “They’re not even demons,” Pete said. Jack shot her an alarmed look, eyes widening, but she looked back and begged him with her expression to just play along. I’ll explain later, she mouthed.

  Donovan tapped the closed door. “We’ll be safe here for a while. Eventually the rest of the horde is going to realize something’s up, but not many have the stones to toe up with a wraith. Once it’s dark we can maybe move.”

  Pete thought of the raven, telling her to run. That this was a dead man’s town. It hadn’t been wrong. Just her stubborn fault she hadn’t listened to it. “I can’t hide until dark,” she said. “I’ve got to go and get Margaret.”

  “And who’s Margaret?” Donovan said.

  “She’s the last kid,” Pete said. “The only one the worms didn’t get their hooks into.”

  “Then she’s dead,” Donovan said. “Just like the rest of them. No help. We want to stay in control of ourselves, not join the walking dead out there, we stay hidden.”

  “Fuck off,” Pete told him, and pushed open the door. Donovan hauled her back by the arm.

  “You go out there, I can’t protect you,” he snarled. He was strong, stronger than Jack by a long way.

  “You just showed up, so maybe you don’t know,” she told him. “But I’m not the one needs protecting.”

  “I have a hard time believing you’re seriously willing to die for some snot-nosed kid that’s not even yours,” Donovan said. “That’s not human nature. ’Least not any I understand.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t understand, then,” Pete said. Donovan relaxed his grip, giving a sigh.

  “I’ll come with you, then.”

  “And leave Jack by himself?” Pete said. “I don’t bloody think so.”

  “If you want to see either of us in one piece again,” Jack said, “please do not leave me alone with this arsehole.”

  “I set up protection barriers around the tomb,” Donovan said. “They’ll hold the wraiths off while we go get your brat.”

  “Margaret,” Pete said. “Her name is Margaret.”

  “I could not care less what her name is,” Donovan said. “But if this’ll get you to listen, then so be it.” He swept his arm toward the door, black coat flapping like the wing of a dire bird. “After you, Milady.”

  Pete looked back at Jack, who leaned his head against the stone, swiping at the sweat on his face. It was painfully clear he couldn’t stay here much longer, but Margaret was in more immediate danger. Pete just hoped she wasn’t making the sort of choice she’d have nightmares about in the years to come.

  “While we’re young,” Donovan said, as Pete hesitated on the steps of the tomb. Watching the wraiths flit among the tombstones was surreal, like watching a group of panthers strolling along Oxford Street.

  “That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you,” Pete muttered. Donovan chuckled, dry as kindling.

  “I can see why my boy likes you. That mouth good for anything
except clever quips?”

  “Keep it up and you’ll find out what my foot is good for,” Pete told him. “If it’s this or silence, then let’s agree to shut the fuck up.”

  They passed the iron fence on the other side from the Killigan house, and Pete found a dirt road winding back toward the village. The mist pressed in, keeping them hidden from all eyes, trailing spectral trails of moisture across Pete’s face and hair.

  She walked quickly to keep pace with Donovan’s lanky city-dweller stride, praying silently that she wouldn’t be too late to keep Margaret from become just another white-eyed dead girl.

  19.

  “So, you and my son,” Donovan said, having kept quiet, by Pete’s count, for precisely two and a half minutes. “What’s happening there?”

  Pete concentrated on her footsteps, digging the steel toes of her boots into the mud and gravel as hard as she could, pretending they were Donovan’s face. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Not the sort of conversation you have during the first hour you see your kid,” Donovan said. “So I’ll ask you instead, gorgeous: Are you two sleeping together, or is it an adorable sort of telly-friendly unresolved sexual tension gambit?”

  Pete decided that she could see, after less than an hour with Donovan, why Jack’s mother had chosen to get stoned out of her mind while they were together. “I’ve got a better hideously rude non sequitur for you: After thirty-five years, you show up now?” she countered. “What prompted you, exactly? Need a kidney?”

  Donovan smirked at her. “Not hardly. I’d wager I’m in better shape than a man who spent half his adult life slamming smack into his bloodstream, even if he is my son.”

  Pete went quiet at that. She hadn’t been sure how much Donovan knew. He didn’t seem aware of her talent, or the extent of Jack’s, and she was happy to keep it that way.

  “It was the sight,” Pete said. “The heroin helped keep it manageable. He thought it was the only way.”

  “Until you came along?” Donovan said. “Love of a good woman and all that rot?”