by P. N. Elrod
"Are you close to edge? Going to have an episode?" Pete asked anxiously. Jack shook his head.
"Hotels are good for that. So much humanity, so much fear and strain and pleasure too—like listening to a radio tuned just out of frequency. Peaceful, really. Sort of a white noise."
Pete's heart beat normally again. Jack wasn't going to disappear into the well of his sight, when it bounced back from his mage sensitivities amplified to the point where he sometimes couldn't tell the murdered, gibbering ghosts from flesh. He wasn't going to control it with a needle as he had before. The ink holds, she told herself firmly, and nearly believed it.
"I guess I am a bit peckish," she conceded, on the heels of her relief. Jack gave a bounce on the mattress next to her.
"Bloody right! Get dressed." He dropped a kiss on Pete's cheek, featherlight and dry, and then jumped up and went to root in his case. "What d'you think will give those stick-up-the-arse hotel staffers a bigger coronary?" He held up two jerseys, one featuring Iggy Pop flipping the bird and one a River City Rebels bit that proclaimed CORRUPT THE KING WHILE YOU FUCK THE QUEEN!
"Rebels," said Pete. She slid off the bed and got a black sweater and jeans to change into. Another hard and fast rule of life in the Black—never clothe yourself in anything you weren't able to run in, or willing to sacrifice to burns, blood, or demonic spittle.
THE RESTAURANT, Ml AMOR, WAS DECIDEDLY NOT A denim-and-sweater sort of place and caused a fidgety response in Pete akin to stepping into a dowager aunt's parlor.
White and pink linen billowed over the tables, and a terrace looked out on the sea. The entire arrangement was lit only by candles, and red-jacketed waiters moved among the bowed heads of diners like phantoms. Torches on the terrace flared valiantly against the fog and the wind that had sprung up. Pete smelled the tang of the bog through the doors, open even though it was late autumn. She shivered involuntarily. The closer she got to the sea, the louder the magic hissed, like standing too close to an amplifier.
"Winter, Suite 103," Jack told the maître d'. The maître d', shaven-headed and wearing a tuxedo that fit like he'd hastily buttoned it over his footie jersey, ran a stubby finger down the list.
"Ah," he said, grinning and displaying the sort of teeth that gave England a bad name, "The honeymooners."
"Bloody right." Jack grinned back, throwing an arm around Pete. His hand wandered south toward her chest and she twisted his index finger, hard. Jack hissed but managed to keep smiling.
"Right this way," said the maître d'. He shuffled through the candlelit cavern, flames and linens rippling in the wind off the sea.
"Reminds me of a bloody tomb," Pete muttered. "All shrouds and saint's candles."
"Anyone ever tell you you've got one bloody morbid set of sensibilities?" Jack muttered back. Pete shrugged out from under his arm and wrapped hers around herself. The mist swirled beyond the French doors and obscured whatever was beyond the torchlight. Somewhere far away in the night, waves hit the rocks with a hushed, wind-driven desperation.
"Here we are," the maître d' said, pulling out Pete's chair. She sank down, still shivering. Jack took her hand, a pretense of a romantic gesture, but in reality he squeezed her fingers and mouthed, "All right?"
"Donovan will be your waiter," said the maître d', and withdrew with another rotted-out smile.
"I'm fine," Pete said, low toned. "Just cold."
"I feel it too," Jack assured her. "It's wild out there. The hunting moon is whipping everything into frenzy. Just eat something and have a drink and a laugh. It'll settle once midnight passes."
Pete nodded to placate Jack, sipping her water. It wasn't just the impending moonrise, pushing against her skin as the ambient magic of the world gathered and sparked wild hunts and bonfire dancing. It was the slithering sensation, the closed-in mist that penetrated everything in Blackpool, closed off the famous neon lights and Spire, and wrapped the hotel in silence. She felt like something was stirring, just behind her eyes, ancient and terrible. Was this what she looked forward to if she left the Metropolitan Police and went with Jack to learn what he had to teach about magic? This horrible birthing, that struggled to surface?
"Drinks?"
Pete gasped and stared up—and up—into the face of possibly the most grotesque man she'd ever seen. The waiter had a brow that jutted like a Cornish cliff, ginger eyebrows parading across the bone ridge. Birdlike black eyes burned from sunken sockets and his jaw was knotty and misshapen, like he'd taken a bad hit during a rugby match. A scar ran from the left side of his mouth, disappearing in a serrated line down his neck. "Drinks?" he said again.
Jack shook his head once and put on his congenial, one-of-the-blokes face. Jack was good at instant masks of true feeling. "Whiskey here, mate. Straight with no nonsense, if you please."
The waiter, who had shoulders that a yeoman could have yoked a wagon to under his starched red shirt, grunted and wrote on a pad. His name tag read DONOVAN in the same overwrought, near-unreadable print repeated throughout the resort.
"And you, miss?" Donovan had a Geordie accent, and it came out more like "Anyewmess?"
"Red…" Pete swallowed, tracing the terrible scar down his neck and into his collar with her eyes. How had he survived such a slash? Maybe because he was built like a mountain troll… "Red wine," she managed.
"It were a gaff," Donovan said. He touched the scar with hands that could have turned Pete's head into a cracked egg. "Used to work the fishin' boats out on the North Sea. Me mate turned and caught me with the gaff one day, in the fog. Didn't see me comin'. I were real quiet-like, back then. Made no more noise than smoke." He grinned, although his bulging jaw made the expression sag on one side.
Pete, and Jack, who was making a valiant effort not to burst into laughter, if his snorts were any indication, were saved from a reply by a keening, gull-like shriek from the front of the restaurant. There was a commotion of linen and dropped silver, and a woman stumbled through the tables and launched herself at Donovan. "You stole my husband!"
Donovan batted the slim, sandy-haired girl away with the brutal grace of a big bloke who fights dirty. The woman rocked backward into an empty table, shattering wine goblets. "Bastard!" she screamed and grabbed Donovan again, beating at the waiter's oak-barrel chest with bloodied fists. The chatter of the restaurant stilled and even the couple snogging at the next table stopped for a moment to watch.
Donovan grabbed the woman by her torn sweater, soaked in mud and bog water like the rest of her, and held her at arm's length. "Gerroff, you!"
"You stole him!" the woman sobbed. "You sons of bitches stole my Sheldon…"
"Here," said Pete, standing up and inserting herself between Donovan and the woman. "What's happening?"
"She's mad as a hatter, is what's happening," Donovan growled. "Was ejected from hotel grounds just this morning for causing a fuss."
"They crawled up," moaned the woman. "Across the tow-path. They wrapped him in rot… oh God… they were writhing …" Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused and sweat stood in a line of beads across her cheeks. Pete sniffed. No alcohol on the woman's breath, and Pete felt the instinctive flinch that occurs when in the presence of someone quite mad.
"What's your name?" Pete asked her quietly. "Do you know it? Do you know where you live?"
"Henrietta," the woman shuddered. "Henrietta Phillips. From London."
"Oi," said Donovan. "Who're you to be askin' all these questions?"
"Pete Caldecott," said Pete. "Detective Inspector. Also of London."
"Here, now," said Donovan. "No police needed. This bird's just had a falling out with 'er medications."
"I saw it," Henrietta hissed, and there was terror in her creaking tones, the kind brought on by witnessing something a human was never meant to endure. A touch of cold prickled the back of Pete's neck. She listened when Henrietta said, "I saw it, coming out of the mud and the salt… I heard it speaking… and the smell—oh God, the smell… death and rotted fish and Shel let out th
is scream—"
Donovan pulled Henrietta close and slapped her cheek, leaving a handprint. "Shut yer gob! Gerry!" he yelled to the maître d'. "Call up security!"
"Oi!" Pete shouted in turn. She shoved Donovan back from Henrietta, laying a hand flat on his chest and holding him away. "I think you've done quite enough to help the situation."
"Touch me again and I'll lay a smack on you that'll have teeth out of yer head," Donovan growled.
In less time than it took to blow out a candle, Jack was on his feet. "Lay one hand on her, and you'll be fit for a closed coffin," he said. Jack didn't snarl, or posture, he just stood at Pete's shoulder, over her left side. The hairs on her neck crackled from the power gathering around him, dark blood-fueled magic that clung to Jack when he was angry.
Donovan's eyes flared; then he dropped his chin and backed up a step. Jack smiled in a manner that managed to be genial and terrifying at the same time, all Big Bad Wolf teeth and menace. "Glad we understand one another, mate." He produced a cigarette and lit it off the hurricane candle on the table. No magic in front of the mundanes.
"Sheldon…" Henrietta moaned. "My Shel… we were just on our honeymoon, no time at all… he's gone into the mud now…"
"Is anyone not on their honeymoon in this place?" Pete muttered. Gerry the maître d' and two sufficiently burly members of the hotel staff, clad in satin vests and breeches, rushed up.
"I think maybe this does merit the local constabulary being called…" Pete started, but Gerry pointed a furious finger at her, palm raised. A small tri-pointed tattoo flared from his palm.
"Set down and eat your supper, miss. We are handling the matter and it is none of your concern!"
Pete was set to inform the maître d' that it was more her business than his when Jack yanked her back into her seat. "Don't," he said. "Just sit and eat, like the man said."
"The smell…" Henrietta moaned as they dragged her out, heels wrinkling the carpet. "Brackish oil… the police laughed, and you can as well, but you'll see, you'll all see it soon enough…" Her sobs and screams faded as the arched doors of the restaurant whispered shut. After a moment, the canned music resumed and diners around Pete and Jack ducked their heads back to their plates.
"We better get a complimentary lunch or something for all of this ruckus," Jack said. "Puts off my digestion."
Pete tore a roll into tiny crumbs and watched the breathing dark mist beyond the terrace doors. "Jack, something's going on," she said, finally giving in to the whispers and the pressure on her mind.
"No bloody kidding," he muttered. "That shambling Gerry's been branded with the Tridach mark."
"The what?" Pete always felt as if she were sitting her A-levels while still in first form when Jack talked about the arcane.
"It means he worships the devil," said a burbling female voice from over Jack's shoulder. American, it burred on the skin like a fingertip's touch.
Pete canted her head to the left and caught a shadowed mixture of red lips and curling chestnut hair, lit by eyes the color of rain-washed evergreens, shot with gold. The woman, poured into a black satin dress, sat on the lap of a bloke who was trying hard to be Joe Strummer, and not managing it.
Jack turned in his seat, face lighting when he met the woman's eyes. "You know something about demons."
"I have an affinity for the darkness," said the woman. "And what lives in it."
Pete rolled her eyes. Jack seemed to have no such compunctions. "Do you, now." He let the easy, familiar smile he'd perfected in his days as a front man for the Poor Dead Bastards bloom into being. "Then you know the Tridach mark doesn't really mean he's a devil worshipper. It represents the Triumverate, the ruling body of Hell, and all the associations of being a faithful servant. According to demonic law, he was placed on earth to serve some special purpose. The Triumverate doesn't mark mortals very often."
The woman's lips parted and she looked positively aroused. "You know something about darkness yourself. Delicious." She extended a hand, red plastic talons crowning it in a wet gleam. "I'm Charlotte, and this is my husband, Roy. From Cincinnati."
"Yo," said Roy.
"We're on our honeymoon," Charlotte continued. "Exploring the mysteries of the Old World."
"Of course you are," Pete murmured, fighting the urge to shove the remaining dinner roll into Charlotte's mouth to shut it. "Very image of the virgin bride, you."
"Our fair isle has a lot of secrets to be found." Jack took Charlotte's hand, turning it over instead of shaking it, stroking his thumb over the palm. "May I?"
Charlotte's husband grunted, but her pupils expanded with delight. "You do divination?"
"Luv, I do many things," said Jack. He held Charlotte's hand close to his face and traced each line with the side of his thumb in turn. "A long love line," he intoned. "Life-line… is…"
Jack's shoulders stiffened, like he'd just choked on a sip of water, and his eyes suddenly went nearly white, color leaching. He let out a low moan as his sight gripped him.
"Bollocks," said Pete. She grabbed Charlotte's wrist and Jack's, and yanked them apart, fighting against the iron hold Jack had on the American's hand. Released, Jack slumped over, the pulse in his neck beating like a trapped bird.
Charlotte blinked at Pete. "Christ. He gonna be okay?"
"Fine," Pete snapped. "Just bloody fine, once he learns not to be so bloody stupid and careless!" The last was directed at Jack, but he was staring into the middle distance, color slowly drifting back into his face. He blinked, and his eyes were glacial blue again. Pete unclenched her fists, breathing deep to tell the shrieking part of her mind that it was past, the episode was averted, Jack was fine. It didn't work terribly well. They needed to get out of the restaurant.
"It was lovely meeting you," she told Charlotte. The woman acknowledged her insincere smile with a startled doe-in-the-headlights expression. Pete didn't bother trying to explain Jack's reaction away. Sorry, Charlotte, but my friend here sees dead people with regularity and sometimes it makes him a bit odd… Henrietta wouldn't be the only crazy person thrown out of the hotel tonight.
Pete took Jack's arm and he obediently followed her up, leaning against her shoulder like he'd had half a dozen pints. "Charlotte wanted to shag me," he muttered as he stumbled to the lift with Pete. "I give them six months… tops. 'Sides, she's going to die soon, and who would want to shag a corpse?…"
Pete punched the button for the lift with her free hand and settled Jack against her shoulder. Seeing death for a person still living was the worst of the sight. The crushing inevitability of it could send Jack out of commission for days.
"And you wonder why I don't want to get married."
JACK SLEPT, AFTER DEMOLISHING THE LAST OF THE minibar's whiskey, lying lengthwise across the bed. Using his sight was like popping a handful of Valium, or so he'd told Pete. He could sleep forever, completely blank and dreamless.
Pete grumbled him out of his shoes and socks and left him sprawled. She turned out the lights and curled on the sofa under a pink throw. If it were just her, she'd be on the motorway back to London. The hotel was wrong, like being trapped inside the skeleton of a giant desiccated beast. Lines of black power crossed under their feet, and Jack seemed oblivious.
Or maybe he was just used to it. And you would be as well, you poor excuse for a Weir, if you'd learn to block out feed from every stray spurt of magic floating on the wind. She couldn't very well shake Jack awake and say, "We have to go home. The hotel gives me the creeping spooks for reasons I can't fully explain." Jack would laugh himself weak, and then tell her she was being bloody stupid. "Besides, I'm a sodding inspector," she muttered, "and I'm afraid of harmless hotel ghosts."
"Harmless" here being a subjective term, of course. She groaned at her own pitiful state and pulled the throw up to her chin.
Since the incident in London, sleep was a reluctant and elusive partner, but Pete nevertheless felt her lashes flutter down against her cheeks. The sofa was soft and the throw was warming h
er and the hush-hush of the sea coaxed her to sleep, just sleep…
No nightmare forced Pete to wake or perish, just a repetitive, steady boom boom boom, like the beating of a great three-chambered heart.
Jack stirred and turned over on the bed, a shaft of weak fog-filtered sunlight turning his platinum hair white. The beating came again, boom boom boom. "Room service," a guttural voice spoke.
"Bollocks," Pete muttered. She was awake, and her neck and spine were on fire from sleeping crumpled against the sofa like a scarecrow. "Coming!" she shouted, tripping over her own shoes on the way.
Donovan the waiter stood outside the suite door, holding a covered silver tray. "Morning, miss." His slippery grin gave Pete an involuntary twitch between her shoulder blades.
"We didn't order room service," she said, keeping her frame fully blocking the doorway.
"Course you didn't," said Donovan. "Morning-After Brunch. Compliments of the management." He craned and caught sight of Jack. "Wore the wee lad out, did you?"
Pete snatched the tray. "Give the management my thanks." She shut the door in Donovan's face. "Tosser."
"Whossat?" Jack muttered, an arm over his eyes to block out the sun. "I smell sausages."
Pete set the tray down and regarded it. Silly, of course. Nothing but breakfast under the cover, but at the same time, she felt a spurt of pure animal fear when she thought about what could be under the innocuous nickel-plate lid…
Jack came up and snatched the top off, missing Pete's sharp intake of breath. "Toast is soggy," he muttered, tossing it into the bin. He shoveled eggs and sausage onto a plate and flopped down on the sofa, flicking on the telly. Pete ignored the food and opened the French door onto the balcony. Salted moisture kissed her hair and face. She could see a little ways down the beach in daylight, a lone figure weaving along the sand just in the mist, a lanky black-clad shadow.
