Soul Trade

by Caitlin Kittredge

  “I know all I have to do is channel the soul well. Let the Weir take it,” Pete said. “You’re not going to tell me anything I don’t know.”

  “Is that what you think? How simple a creature you are,” the Morrigan said, laughing. Her feathers rustled, and her eyes narrowed in pleasure.

  Pete set her jaw. “Tell me, then, since you’re so keen to see me fail.”

  “You can’t close a well by channeling it,” the Morrigan said. “There’s more power in Purgatory than a hundred Weirs could absorb in a lifetime, never mind that woman who started this mess. No, you’ve crossed over with that sacrificial soul, and now you have to find a way back. Pull the well after you and collapse it.”

  She grinned, and the blood rivulets on her chin gleamed crimson in the harsh white light of this empty place. “But you won’t make it. No one who enters Purgatory makes an exit. That’s why they call it Purgatory, Petunia. I’m afraid, as your dear Jack put it, that you’re worm food.”

  The Morrigan spread her wings. “And now, he’s all mine. Enjoy eternity, Petunia. It’s going to be a much easier road now that you’re not standing in it.”

  Pete’s hand flashed out, before she even really thought about what a horrible, suicidal idea it was, and latched on to the Morrigan’s arm. “You’re wrong about one thing,” she said.

  The Morrigan gave a crow’s cry, struggling.

  “One thing did make it out of here at least once,” Pete said. “You.”

  She opened her talent, with no hesitation, let the power of the goddess she held flow into her. “Maybe I don’t have to drain Purgatory,” Pete hissed in the Morrigan’s ear, so close their bodies shared a heartbeat. “Maybe I just have to drain you.”

  “Bitch!” the Morrigan screamed, but Pete was beyond caring. The power was vast and cold, the power of death carried across every war, every plague, every place from the beginning, when death had taken root in bloody soil and spread its pall across the world.

  Her body convulsed, the pain warning Pete that wherever her physical form was, she was burning from the inside out. The pain worked as an anchor, keeping her focused as the magic flowed from the Morrigan to her, more and more even as the Morrigan screamed and took flight with Pete still wrapping her in a tight embrace.

  As they fell through Purgatory, Pete saw the place for what it was as her talent amplified her connection to the Black—not a block of flats but a blank place, a place of stone and ash dropping endlessly into a screaming void absent of stars, the cold of space encroaching. White things wriggled in the darkness like maggots in rot, reaching for her, so close that Pete knew that in another few seconds, she’d have been consumed by the worms and the Morrigan would have had Jack all to herself.

  “You keep this up and you die!” the Morrigan screamed. “I’ll have your soul, and it will be tormented in my army for eternity!”

  Pete watched the Morrigan’s inhuman gold eyes as they fell, never blinking. “You didn’t believe me,” she said, “but I was telling the truth. I’m not afraid of you. Or death. I’m afraid of leaving the world to people like the Prometheans. I’m afraid of letting Jack down, and I’m afraid my daughter will forget me.”

  She dug her fingernails into the Morrigan’s flesh, and at the touch of the goddess’s blood, Pete’s vision was filled only with magic, only with the power that was pouring into her so quickly it was a wonder she wasn’t turning to ash.

  “But you, Hag?” she hissed. “You don’t scare me one fucking bit.”

  The Morrigan screeched, a sound so inhuman it echoed off everything in Purgatory, and then the white flashed away and Pete heard other sounds, sounds of the world she knew.

  “Pete?” Jack’s voice echoed as if from a tunnel. Like breaking the surface of a frozen pond, her eyes flew open and she saw a spotty gray sky, clouds drifting, felt a thumping on her chest like a hammer.

  “Fuck off!” she shouted at Jack, who stopped using his clubbed fists to pump at her chest. “What the Hell are you doing?”

  “CPR,” he panted. “You stopped breathing.”

  “You’re doing it all wrong,” Pete said. The pain wasn’t from the CPR, though. It was the power, burning her from the inside. The Morrigan was gone, but an eternity of power harvested from the dead still rode Pete’s mind. Her vision blurred, her heart stuttered, and she felt her muscles go rigid and spastic with convulsions.

  All at once Jack disappeared, shoved bodily out of the way by Donovan, and Morwenna was bending over her.

  “She channeled it right into her,” Morwenna breathed. “I can’t believe it. Donovan, we can still do it. She’s got enough juice to light up Manchester.”

  “Hurry up,” he said. “And Victor, will you please fucking keep control of my son? He almost smashed her ribcage to bits.”

  Morwenna grabbed Pete’s face between her thumb and forefinger, squeezing hard enough to carve half-moons into Pete’s flesh. “I don’t care what happens to her body, Donovan. I just want what’s riding it. Winter’s far too much of a weakling to carry this kind of power. It’s evident that I’ll be taking up the mantle of the Merlin. Look how the power responds to me.”

  She placed her fingers on Pete’s forehead and inhaled. “Give the power to me, old ones,” she murmured. “I await you, your worthy servant, worthy of the gift first given one hundred generations past.”

  It was as if someone had placed a magnet against her. Pete felt all the power rush to the surface of her mind and travel through the pathways of her neurons toward Morwenna’s voice. In the woman’s clenched fist she saw the soul cage, still coaxing the vast energies of the emptiness toward the pain and suffering of the mage soul inside.

  Well, she thought absently. At least I’m not going to die in the mud. Might even make it to a hospital if I’m lucky.

  Beyond the roaring of the Morrigan’s magic, she heard a scream. At first she thought it was Margaret, but it was Morwenna, mouth open wide as it would go, a grotesque red slash of rage and disbelief.

  The power left Pete as abruptly as it had come, and she fell back into the mud, that hit-by-a-lorry feeling worse than ever.

  Beyond the circle of mages, Margaret gave a small shudder, a jolt, and then passed her hands over her face.

  “What the fuck just happened?” she asked Jack.

  “It’s her,” Victor said, his voice soft and full of awe. “The magic chose her.”

  “No!” Morwenna screamed, starting for Margaret. “It’s mine! I made the offering! I said the words! I’m the one who bloody stepped up when it counted!”

  Victor put an arm out and stopped her as easily as you’d stop a small child throwing a fit. “I’m sorry, Morwenna,” he said. “But she’s the Merlin. The Weir’s energies chose her.”

  One by one, the mages of the Prometheus Club turned to Margaret, some staring with blantant hostility, others with curiosity.

  “Guess that explains why you’re not a worm, luv,” Jack said, squeezing Margaret on the shoulder.

  “Please accept my apology,” Victor said, extending his hand to Margaret. “And consider this a formal offer to take your seat at the head of the Prometheus Club.”

  “Don’t do it,” Jack said instantly. “Worse than school. Make you wear an ugly suit like his. Install a stick up your arse on your eighteenth birthday.”

  Margaret just blinked, looking at her hands. “I feel weird,” she said, sticking herself to Jack like a burr. “I just want to go back to Manchester.”

  Morwenna dropped to her knees in the mud. Pete watched tears streak down her crimson face as sobs racked her body. “I’ve given my whole life,” she said. “I’ve given everything. Everything I had and more. Don’t I deserve something? Anything?”

  Pete managed to pull herself into a sitting position, which hurt but wasn’t impossible. She tried standing and found that wasn’t bad, either.

  “Donovan,” Morwenna pleaded, grabbing at Donovan’s hand. “You stood with me when everyone thought I was insane to try to become t
he new Merlin. You know it can’t be this … this … brat!”

  Donovan looked at Morwenna, then at Margaret, and gave a shrug. “Sorry, luv,” he said. “Tough break.”

  Morwenna leaped at his back faster than seemed possible for a sobbing woman in a tight skirt, and Pete shouted. “Donovan, look out!”

  Morwenna grabbed for the gun in Donovan’s waistband, but he knocked her back into the mud. Morwenna raised her hand and started to speak a word of power, but Donovan whistled, sharp and high, before she could get it out.

  Pete saw the shapes advance through the fog, cutting it like sharks in water, and she ran to Jack, pulling both him and Margaret into a crouch and covering the girl’s eyes.

  Only she had the vantage to see what happened.

  The wraiths flew at Morwenna, drawn by the energy Pete could feel crackling across her skin and pulsing through her blood. Donovan’s talent was in full force, and the wraiths found easy prey as Morwenna struggled to get up from the mud. She barely made a sound, could only moan and quiver a bit as the wraiths drank her dry.

  Victor and the other mages watched dispassionately, not blinking, Victor’s expression a flat slate of nothing.

  “We can go,” Pete said, releasing her hold on Jack and Margaret. It was hard to let go of Jack, but she made herself do it. “The well’s closed. It shouldn’t be affecting our senses any longer.”

  “No,” Jack said, harsh as the sound Morwenna had made. “We’re making sure she’s dead.”

  They watched as the wraiths drank, then drifted away, sated, at Donovan’s bidding. Pete tugged on Jack. “We really need to go.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Donovan intoned. “The Merlin comes with us.” He stuck out his arm to Margaret. “Come, child.”

  Margaret stepped back, shaking her head wildly. “Get away from me. I don’t know you.”

  “Either we take the Merlin, or I leave your bodies for the ravens,” Donovan snarled. “Those are your options.”

  He fixed Jack with a look of utter contempt. “I had hoped you’d take up your seat, boy, but now I’m almost glad I’ll be disposing of you. You’re nothing but a disappointment, Jack, in every way possible.”

  Jack started to reply, but Pete all at once knew she’d had enough of Donovan Winter. Enough to last her a lifetime, and then some.

  She set herself and hit him, in the soft spot just under his cheek. Donovan’s head snapped around as the sound of the punch echoed back from the hillside.

  Donovan dropped, mud splashing all over him, bruise already in full bloom. “You’ve seen what I can do,” Pete told him, keeping her eyes on the rest of the Prometheans. “You lot so much as send a stray thought my way again and you know what’ll happen. I can light every last one of you ablaze with a finger snap, so I suggest you use those few brain cells you have, Donovan, and stay out of our lives from now on.”

  She glared around at the rest of the staring faces. “Anybody else got a problem with leaving the Weir to her business?”

  Nobody did.

  She took Margaret’s hand and started to walk away, but Jack stopped.

  “Oh, and Dad,” he said, as Donovan struggled to get to his feet. “You can slag me off all you want, but as far as disappointing you goes…” He grinned at Donovan, and it was the Jack grin Pete knew, not the pale imitation his father used. “I can’t remember when I’ve been more fucking proud of meself. You ever come near me family again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  He turned his back and said to Pete, “Let’s go, luv. I’ve had me fill of the country.”

  “That makes two of us,” Pete grumbled. “I’ve got so much mud on me, I may never leave greater London again.”

  As they descended the hill and found one of the Prometheans’ parked cars to take, Pete realized she could see again. The fog had lifted from Overton. The black cairn marking the soul well was knocked over, and the tree had withered down to a twisted stump.

  The sky was clear.

  The ravens had gone.

  28.

  It was a simple enough matter to convince the care workers in Manchester to let Pete take custody of Margaret, at least temporarily. The Smythes didn’t have any relatives, and Pete was a responsible sort who actually wanted to take control of a belligerent thirteen-year-old. The care worker practically threw the paperwork at her with a bow on it.

  When they were on the train back to London, Margaret dozing, Pete put her head on Jack’s shoulder and finally let her eyes close. “How are you?” she asked softly.

  He sucked in a breath, and then she felt his arm slide around her, fingers squeezing hard enough to leave a mark. “How d’you think I am?”

  “Feeling like shite, probably,” Pete murmured. “Same as me.”

  “Too right,” Jack sighed. “This was a Hell of a week, Petunia, I won’t lie. ’M as bloody and battered as I ever have been.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” Pete said, so softly she didn’t know if Jack heard her over the roar of the train.

  He was quiet for a moment, and then she felt his chest expand with a sigh. “If you’d told me you were planning to channel the soul well, I’d’ve done something boneheaded to stop you.”

  “You had to know I wouldn’t just lie down for someone like Morwenna,” Pete said.

  “Yeah,” Jack agreed. “But you did right not telling me, and I can admit that.”

  “I hated it,” Pete confessed, feeling a hot prickle in her eyes and willing them to stay dry. “The thought of never seeing you or Lily again. But I hated the thought of us living in a place like that more.”

  “I think about it sometimes,” Jack said. “One or the other of us not making it. I’m not like you, Pete. I can’t even consider it.”

  Pete found his hand and squeezed it. Jack wasn’t one to rush in on a white horse. She’d made peace with that long ago, and it was fine. She could be the hero, and he could be the rock. It’d be a nice change for once. “You would. If it was me or Lily. You have. You’re the bravest man I know, Jack Winter, and that’ll never change.”

  “You think that’s it?” Jack said. “That the Prometheans’ll listen and stay away?”

  “I don’t know,” Pete said, not wanting to voice what she did know. She’d merely hit pause on what was coming, not ended it. The Morrigan was more intent than ever on having Jack for her own. The Black was irreparably broken, and the appearance of the soul well was only the first major crack in the walls between worlds.

  “I don’t even bloody care at this point.” Jack put his arm around her, holding her to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About Donovan and all of that. You think you don’t give a fuck about those people, and then they show up and they slice you right to the fucking core, like you were six years old again. To think for a few seconds there I actually considered forgiving that cunt…”

  Pete stopped him, shaking her head. “Jack, your parents were horrid, awful, selfish people, and Donovan made the choice to mess with black magic and try to grab a little more power rather than do right by his son,” she said. “Don’t fucking apologize for him.”

  He laughed, rough and regretful. “We’ll do better. Especially now that it seems we’ve got two.”

  “We will,” Pete agreed. “I mean, how hard could it possibly be to do better than my crazy mum and your homicidal dad?”

  Jack kissed the top of her head. “You always know exactly what to say to a bloke.”

  “It’s my superpower,” Pete said. She nestled into Jack’s chest again. “It all worked out,” she said. “I mean, as well as it ever does for us.”

  Jack stared out the train window, and Pete followed his gaze. The sky was gray and peaceful, as if the world held its breath, above the spires and down into the deepest core of the earth, where the dead lay silent.

  A deception, but one she could let Jack live with, at least until the end of the train line.

  He drifted off after a time, leaving Pete alone with the memories of what she’d seen on the
hill, under the black cairn.

  I’ll have him in the end, the Morrigan whispered in her ear, and Pete knew, deep down in the place where she knew things beyond thought or reason, and discerned the veracity in the old gods’ words with her talent, that the Hag spoke the truth.

  And that she was going to have to figure out how to prove the Morrigan wrong.

  Epilogue

  That is not dead which can eternal lie,

  And with strange aeons even death may die

  —H. P. Lovecraft

  29.

  Victoria Station was the most welcome sight Pete had ever set eyes on. Full of people and movement, just normal people going about their day, the place was unbelieveably soothing. She had missed the crowds of her city, and the ebb and flow of the Black that, while not comfortable, was at least familiar.

  Jack was phoning Lawrence to meet them with Lily when Pete became aware of another presence, like a shadow falling across her face.

  “Save the day again, did you?” Belial said. “You’re getting to be a proper little superhero, Petunia.”

  Jack started as he saw the demon standing between them all at once, his slim form slotting neatly into the space. “Fuck,” he said. “I hate it when you do that.”

  “Leave,” Pete said. “I told you we were done talking.”

  “Oh, what we talked about holds truer than ever,” said Belial. “But lovely as you are, Petunia, I never did get to the point of my little visit in Overton. That bit concerns your knight in shining hair bleach.”

  “You two talked? In Overton?” Jack’s eyes narrowed, and Pete couldn’t tell if he was angrier with Belial or her.

  “I was going to tell you,” she said. “But it did kick off just a bit right after I saw him.” She just thanked her lucky stars that Margaret was getting food at one of the cafes that lined the main concourse, and she didn’t have to see Belial in the flesh. No child needed that in their nightmares.