Текст книги "The Cold Kiss of Death"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Malik removed his hand from where it rested on my body’s chest and leaned back. ‘Then please try, Joseph.’
Joseph gave him a quick smile, but the shape his mouth made was wrong, triumphant, instead of pleased to help. He dipped his hand inside his bag and pulled something out, pointing it at Malik. There was a snick!and a quivering dart lodged at the base of Malik’s throat. Then Joseph turned and shot Tavish, the dart going straight into his chest.
I jumped up, the snakes writhing in alarm, leaping for him—
‘Stop,’ Joseph said almost casually as he looked up. ‘Don’t move.’
–and I stopped, held in place like a fly trapped in amber. What the hell had he done to me?
Cosette flew into the centre of the room, her long dark hair whipping about her head, her small hands held out towards me. A wind blew from her hands and threw me back until I crash-landed at the base of Rosa’s stone altar.
‘Nicely done, Joseph.’ Cosette’s child-face split in an approving grin, then she came and stood over me. ‘Genny, I think you and Joseph have already met.’ She beckoned him over. ‘But I don’t think you’ve been properlyintroduced.’ She held out her hand and somehow managed to take hold of his.
‘Genny, this is Joseph. My son.’
‘Your son?’ Stunned, I scrambled up to my feet.
‘Yes. He’s a fine figure of a man, isn’t he?’ She smiled up at him, pride in her eyes. ‘And a true necromancer, not like that piffling weakling Hannah managed to dig up from somewhere.’
‘Sit down, Genny,’ Joseph said, using that same quiet casual tone, fixing his owl-like gaze on me.
I was sitting on the floor, legs crossed Indian-style, before he’d even finished speaking my name. Fear and fury coursed through me in equal parts, and the snakes retreated uneasily, hiding under my skin. Cosette was right: Necro Neil might’ve managed to push me around a bit, but his commands had been nothingcompared to Joseph’s effortless control.
She puffed up with even more pride. ‘And if things had been different, I would have liked to see what sort of grandchild you two would have given me—but that’s not going to happen now—while I might trade with a demon, I still draw the line at incest.’ She patted Joseph’s hand. ‘After all, Hannah’s idea of usurping your body for herself is really too great an opportunity to be missed.’
Fuck. Out of one sorcerer’s frying pan and straight into the other one’s fire.
What the hell was I going to do now?
Chapter Thirty-One
‘Come on, Mum, time to get you sorted,’ Joseph said. He walked over to my limp body and picked it up, grunting with effort as he lifted it—being a necro obviously didn’t give him any perks in the physical world. He laid my body gently on the sacrificial altar and started cutting away the remnants of the orange dress. ‘You don’t want to be still in spirit form when the demon turns up, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ she said. She smiled up at him as she climbed up on the altar and sat herself down so she was half in and half out of my body. ‘Although the demon should be happy enough with the sidhe’s soul.’
‘Glad someone’s going to be happy,’ I muttered.
Joseph rummaged inside his black bag, laying things out on the trolley next to his machines. I briefly wondered if he’d had some sort of practise run, playing around with my soul and my body while I’d been out of it after the explosion at the bakery, when he’d supposedly been taking care of me. I shoved that deeply disturbing thought away. It was more important to figure out how to get my own body back before Cosette took up residence in it. Then I had to stop the demon gobbling up all the other ghosts, never mind the virgin sacrifice—because something told me that just because the sorcerer directing operations had changed, the treats on offer for the demon’s Hallowe’en visit hadn’t.
And now Malik’s and Tavish’s heroic rescue attempt had ended in disaster, Cosette probably intended adding them to her bag of demon treats too. I banged my head back against the stone altar in frustration and anger. With friends like Joseph, Malik really didn’t need any enemies.
‘So if I’m to be a demon snack,’ I raised my voice, waving at the unconscious bodies, ‘what’s going to happen to the two of them?’
‘Um.’ Cosette considered Tavish. ‘The soul-taster is a problem; he’s not dead, so I’m not sure the demon will take him, but we’ll see. But as for the vampire, he’s going to come in useful for Joseph here, much as Rosa was for you these last three years.’ She smiled up at him as he inserted a shunt into my body’s arm. I really wanted to wipe that saccharine look off her little girl’s face. Later, I promised myself.
‘Now I’ve perfected the Body Transference spell,’ she went on, ‘it seems wasteful not to use it again, doesn’t it, Son?’
‘Yes.’ He glanced over at me, then inserted a hypodermic needle into a clear glass vial and filled the syringe. ‘I understand it can be an interesting experience.’
So Joseph was going to walk around in Malik’s body, just as I had in Rosa’s. My heart lurched: I might have done the same thing myself, but it was unwittingly, and I’d never had Rosa do anything I wouldn’t have done myself. Somehow I didn’t think Joseph would take the same care of Malik’s body. Not that Rosa had taken that much care of her own body, if her memories were anything to go by. I looked up at her a little speculatively. Was there any way I could use her to get out of this? Cosette had said it wasn’t possible earlier, but she had her own agenda, and it wasn’t like sorcerers were known for telling the truth. I looked at my two captors, but they were deep in discussion about whatever evil nastiness they were planning now.
Slowly I got up, relieved that Joseph’s ‘sit down’ command must’ve negated his earlier ‘don’t move’ one. Holding my breath, trying not to catch his attention, I climbed onto the stone altar, wincing as my hands and knees sank inside Rosa’s body. I lay down, positioning myself so I merged inside her.
Nothing.
I stared up at the brick-arched ceiling, fists clenched like Rosa’s, willing it to work.
Still nothing happened. Damn. I’d really needed Cosette to be wrong on this one. Maybe if I concentrated, tried to think like Rosa, I could spark her into life. I closed my eyes and imagined Joseph tied up in chains. It was a great image; it fed my anger and frustration, but nothing else. Joseph was pleasant-looking—even if his intentions were anything but—but he wasn’t exactly eye-candy. Maybe what Rosa needed was for me to think of someone more—
‘Psst, I tole you, that don’t work, sidhe.’ The sharp whisper made me flinch. ‘All you gonna do is give ’er nightmares.’
My heart thudding with disbelief, and the tiniest touch of hope, I looked towards the voice.
Moth-girl’s white face grinned at me. ‘We’ve come t‘rescue you,’ she whispered happily. ‘Great, innit?’
I rolled out of Rosa’s body and off the slab and crouched down next to Moth-girl, hoping that Joseph couldn’t see ghosts through stone. ‘Who’s “we”?’
‘Me, Daryl, an’ that ovver vamp I stuck wiv the knife, oh, an’ yer doctor pal.’
Anxiety spiked through me. Crap, what the hell was Grace doing here?
‘I couldn’t find that ovver vamp you wanted me to tell, y’know, the Asian-lookin’ one,’ she went on.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘He turned up anyway. What about the police? Did you tell them?’
‘Oh yeah, them’s coming too,’ she sniffed, adding, ‘well, maybe.’ The grey patchwork of her clothes fluttered with disdain. ‘That bitch-witch in charge weren’t too impressed wiv my story; ’er and yer doctor pal had a right set-to ’bout it all. So the coppers ain’t ’ere yet.’
Damn—did that mean the police would get here before the demon or not? Detective Inspector Helen Crane had to know that midnight was demon dinner time, didn’t she? Of course she did, the cynic in me agreed, but wouldn’t a delay suit her if it meant I wasn’t around to cause her any more problems?
‘Hey, don’t look like tha’,’ Moth-girl’s eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘We don’t need no bleedin’ coppers, not when we got ghosts and shades. ‘Ere, ’ave a butcher’s.’ She peeked over the top of the slab, then rose up and rested her chin on her hands, grinning.
I joined her. Scarface shuffled silently in through the doorway. A woman carrying a bunch of withered flowers ambled behind him, then another man limped in; his head wrapped in a dirty bandage. The reek of putrefying flesh filled the air, but this time it was almost welcome. Then there were more ghosts, men and women, all moving silently: a boy with a flat cap leading a small tan and white dog on a string; two dark-haired little girls, about six years old, clutching each others’ hands and skipping in their charred frilly dresses; a soldier, his khaki-coloured uniform ripped and bloodstained, using his rifle as a crutch ... they kept coming.
I watched, bemused. ‘Where did they all come from?’
‘’Mazin’, innit?’ she whispered gleefully. ‘Yer doctor pal just picked up th’Easter egg fing an’ opened it, an’ whoosh, out they all come. I told ’em to come in ’ere an’ disrup’ fings.’
I spotted the ghost knife lying at the side of Rosa’s stone altar; if I could reach Cosette before Joseph noticed—
‘C’mon, then.’ I snatched up the knife and rushed round the altar. ‘Let’s see how much disruption we—’
‘Stop.’ Joseph’s voice reverberated through me, pinning me in place. ‘Turn around and go back to the other tunnel.’ I watched hopelessly as the ghosts turned as one and started shambling away.
Joseph’s brown eyes were blinking fast above his face-mask. He held up the hypodermic in one hand and pushed back his glasses with the back of his wrist as he watched them leave. I stared at Moth-girl’s retreating back. I wanted to tell her it was a good try, that no way could she have known Joseph was a necro, or how powerful he was, but I couldn’t move. Joseph’s command to go back to the other tunnel evidently hadn’t applied to me.
He looked over at me, frowning. ‘I don’t know how you did that, Genny, but—’ He stopped and looked around. ‘Someone else is here, aren’t they?’
I stared up at him from my frozen, half-bent stance, fingers inches away from the knife. He’d asked me a question. I discovered I didn’t have to answer.
‘Tell me,’ he commanded.
‘Friends,’ my mouth blurted.
‘The police? Tell me.’
‘No.’
‘Who then—?’
A dark blur dropped from the roof as if gliding on black-leather wings and landed on the sacrificial altar, crouching in front of him. Joseph jumped, a startled, high-pitched cry issuing from his mouth. He stabbed at the black blur with his needle, embedding it in the blur’s chest. The blur shook itself, snarled and leapt at Joseph, ploughing them both into the machines—which crashed in a crescendo of noise, sparks showering upwards in bright tracer-like arcs. Amidst the chaos, the blur hunched over Joseph and buried its head in his throat and a short, pain-filled scream resounded through the tunnel. Then the scream cut off as a fountain of blood cascaded over the hunched figure, leaving only an echo in its wake.
Had the demon come early?
I launched myself towards the blur, knife still in my hand then stopped to stare down at a blood-drenched but vaguely familiar tawny head of hair. The owner was now gnawing its way through Joseph’s throat. The sounds of tearing flesh and muscle and the quick snap of bone and the metallic scent of blood made my stomach roil, and brought the snakes hissing and slithering in agitation over my skin.
‘My Daryl got ’im!’ Moth-girl fluttered to my side, punched her arm in the air and whooped, ‘My Daryl got that fucker ghost-grabber!’
Darius the lap-dancing vampire lifted his head and gave her a gore-covered grin. ‘Your plan worked great, didn’t it, Shaz?’ he said, pushing himself up on all fours and rising to his feet in an oddly inhuman move.
He unzipped his black leather coat and slipped out of it; underneath he wore just his sequinned Calvin Kleins—not even any boots. Didn’t he have any other clothes? He shook the coat, and blood and other heavier bits splattered to the concrete floor, then he shrugged it back on, zipped it back up and licked his lips. ‘Real great,’ he grinned again.
I looked down.
Joseph was lying there, his glasses askew on his mangled head, the white of his spine glistening in the bright red abstract of his neck, his legs at an odd angle. I was still puzzled by Joseph. He’d seemed ... well, nice, and strangely naïve when I’d first met him. But evil doesn’t always show its face as ugliness, or fangs, or strangeness. That would be much too easy.
And yeah, Moth-girl’s plan had worked real great! It might not have been pretty, but Joseph was gone, and I couldn’t feel anything other than satisfaction.
But now there was the rest of it to finish.
I looked over at my body, still lying on the sacrificial altar, wondering why Cosette hadn’t put in an appearance. Then I saw the reason for her absence: sticking out of my body’s chest was the handle of the soul-bonder knife, the oval amber of the dragon’s tear winking in the candlelight. Darius must’ve have attacked Joseph mid-ritual, so Cosette was trapped—
‘Genny,’ an anxious voice called from behind me, ‘is that you?’
I clutched anxiously at the ghost knife as I turned. Grace peered at me as she hurried through the archway, her pink-check jacket flapping over her blue doctor’s scrubs, her frizz of black curls flattened and tangled with cobwebs on one side, dust streaking the dark skin of her left cheek like a half-finished war stripe. She carried the open Fabergé egg in one hand and led the tearful florist’s lad with her other, her backpack slung over her shoulder. Heartfelt relief flooded into me. They were both still alive.
Bobby stalked behind Grace like some sort of übergoth warrior in his all-black Mr October outfit, his hair neatly pulled back in his trademark French plait. He carried Moth-girl’s body in his arms. ‘Hey, Sharon,’ he called, ‘are you getting back in here, or do you want me to keep carrying you around?’
Grace dropped the lad’s hand and rushed up to me—the ghost me—and flung her arm round me in a tight hug. ‘Thank the Goddess you’re okay, Genny. I’ve been so worried about you.’ The snakes flared, then settled, but she didn’t appear to notice them. She also appeared to find me very solid, and that meant it was close to midnight, when the dead could converse—and more, if they wanted—with the living.
I hugged her back just as hard, keeping the ghost knife safely pressed to my thigh, breathing in her comforting floral perfume with its faint underlay of antiseptic. ‘Thanks for coming to the rescue, Grace,’ I murmured, totally inadequately, ‘and I’m fine now—but what on earth happened to you?’
She trembled slightly, then sniffed and gave a nervous laugh. ‘That Souler chap, Neil, jumped out at me when I went to help the lad here. Stupid really, I should’ve checked for someone guarding him first.’ She gave another hiccoughing laugh and hitched up her backpack. ‘I don’t think I’m cut out for this action-rescue business. Although I did bring spells.’ She pulled away and looked back at Bobby, a slightly scared expression on her face. ‘But Bobby took care of him.’
Bobby had laid Moth-girl’s body down on a clear patch of floor and was now staring at Rosa where she lay on her stone slab.
‘Took care of him, how?’ I asked, frowning.
‘Oh, he didn’t bite him.’ Grace blinked, her pupils nearly eclipsing the dark brown of her irises. ‘He just threw him against the wall.’ She did that hiccoughing laugh-thing again and I realised she was suffering from mild shock ... but then, treating victims in a nice bright clinic like HOPE, even the violent ones, took a different type of courage to venturing underground with a couple of vamps and a sometimes ghost girl. ‘He’s dead—broken neck. I checked,’ Grace added with another blink.
Good riddance, he’d certainly got what was coming to him. But Grace didn’t need to hear that right now. I hugged her again and murmured, ‘Hey, it’s okay, you’re doing brilliantly, and the lad’s safe now, thanks to you.’ I looked at the boy in question, who was standing there shivering, hunched over—
Then a thought hit me like a sucker-punch to my stomach.
Grace had broken the circle to get the florist’s boy and the Fabergé egg out.
And that meant there would be no magic to contain the demon when it turned up. And without even the tenuous boundaries of a graveyard to hold it, it would be free to roam anywhere! And it would be free to take anyone—not just the dead!
I had to get everyone out.
And I had to get the circle closed again.
‘You need to get out of here, Grace,’ I cried, letting her go, ‘and take the lad with you. MOVE! Now!’
A rumble shivered the ground.
Grace froze, her eyes wide with shock and fright.
I pushed urgently at her, yelling, ‘You need to get out, all of you, get out now—!’
The rumble came again; this time dust and bits of brick fell from the ceiling and muted explosions like a hundred-gun salute reverberated through the tunnel.
‘What the bleedin’ ’ell is that?’ Moth-girl squealed.
‘Fireworks,’ Bobby shouted, looking warily up at the arched roof. ‘The trolls are having one of their Hallowe’en parties up on London Bridge.’
‘Run,’ I shouted again. ‘It’s midnight.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Midnight.
All Hallow’s Eve.
It’s the time of year when the veil between the living and the dead dissipates ...
... and demons come trick-or-treating.
This particular demon had dressed up for the occasion in a navy lounge suit, his pale blue shirt open at the throat and fastened at the cuffs with links of heart-shaped sapphires the size of thumbnails. His top pocket sported a silk handkerchief the same colour as his shirt. He exuded ‘relaxed man-about-town’ charisma, but as he surveyed the room, the azure of his eyes shone colder and sharper than the sapphires at his wrists. The demon had dressed up as the Earl, London’s ex-head big-cheese vamp, the vamp I’d killed, and the star of my nightmare after the bakery explosion.
I tried to see the irony in that, except my mind was still short-circuiting with fear.
‘Genevieve, my dear, how nice to see you again.’ The demon gave me the Earl’s charming smile. Centuries of practice meant he showed no hint of his fangs. ‘Well now, this is all terribly interesting.’
Interesting wasn’t quite the word I’d have chosen. Everyone apart from Moth-girl and me was frozen in place; she hovered next to Darius, scared, but with a defiant expression on her white-painted face. I frowned as my mind finally came up with a question. Demons aren’t usually the chatty sort, more the fast-food type. He was loose, there was no circle to contain him, and we were in an unconsecrated graveyard. Why hadn’t the demon just gobbled us all up?
Or maybe he really was the Earl, and all this demon stuff was new to him.
‘So did you turn into a demon when you died, or what?’ I asked, surprised my voice came out steady.
‘Oh no, my dear, this is just a guise—I found his soul wondering unclaimed in the pit and decided I liked the look of it.’ He adjusted his handkerchief. ‘I thought you might appreciate its appearance, as you are somewhat acquainted with each other.’ He grimaced slightly. ‘Although I have found his personality is a bit ingrained after all his time in the mortal world—I do keep getting this urge to talk at length about certain things, like the ongoing rights of vampires. It is mildly irritating.’
‘Feel free to go back to hell and change,’ I said offhandedly, keeping the ghost knife close to my thigh. A vague plan started to form in my mind; the tunnels were on the south side of the Thames, so the river had to be to the north. ‘Don’t let us keep you,’ I added.
‘Ah, but our time is so short, a mere hour, so it appears I will need to continue with him for now. So, onto our evening’s purpose.’ He rubbed his hands briskly. ‘I see there is a good collection of souls, spirits and shades on offer next door. Some are a little the worse for wear, but nonetheless acceptable.’ He walked over to study the florist’s lad. ‘And I do approve of the virgin.’ He sniffed at the boy’s neck. ‘It’s been a few years since I’ve been presented with one. They appear to be rather hard to find nowadays.’
‘To be honest, virgin sacrifices rather went out with the Dark Ages,’ I said flatly, cautiously unhooking Grace’s backpack from her unresisting arm. The painting of the barren landscape at the end of the tunnel room showed the sun setting. Whatever the painting’s use was, no sorcerer would have anything that depicted the world incorrectly; it would screw with their magic. I looked along past the painting, so north had to be ... there.
‘Actually it was afterthe Dark Ages,’ the Earl said pedantically. ‘But that is a discussion for another time. What are you doing, my dear?’
I carefully tucked the ghost knife under my arm, then unzipped the bag and stuck my hand in. ‘Seeing if my friend bought any Holy or Blessed Water with her.’
‘She didn’t,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘Most remiss of her.’
I rummaged around. He was right, she hadn’t; but I was looking for other things too. My fingers closed round a paper bag of small lumps of a putty-like substance and what felt like a large squishy pack of cotton-wool balls—the spells Grace had brought with her. Other than a bottle of water and some medical stuff, there was nothing else, so they would have to do.
The Earl prodded Malik’s tranqed body with his navy loafer and nodded to himself, then strolled up to Darius. He looked him up and down as if contemplating buying, then reached a hand out to the zipper on his black leather coat.
‘Oy, leave ’im alone,’ Moth-girl snarled at him.
The Earl snarled back, his mouth yawning wide, plunging us into a deep, dark abyss, so deep you knew there was no end, that you’d be forever falling, forever screaming, forever terrified, forever burning, with the darkness and the flames eating you up, over and over again—
Then we were back in the tunnel room, the candles flickering over the roof, sweat beading my forehead and the hot trickle of piss wetting my jeans, and Grace’s floral perfume chasing away the reek of brimstone and sulphur.
Moth-girl had collapsed to her hands and knees and was retching violently.
For a moment I thought I would join her as my fingers convulsed around the squishy cotton-wool spells and I swallowed painfully, my throat as raw as if I really had been screaming for aeons ...
The Earl went back to unzipping Darius’ coat. He took a long look, then walked towards Bobby, who was still standing next to Rosa’s body. He ran his hand over Bobby’s head, taking the French braid and weighing it in one hand. He leaned down to place a kiss on Rosa’s slightly parted lips and as he straightened, he reached out and tapped a fingernail almost thoughtfully against the gold locket that lay between her breasts.
I grabbed the mass of cotton-wool balls– Security Stingers ~ the Ultimate Intruder Deterrent —and threw them at him, willing them through the air. Please let this work,I prayed, as the spells zoomed towards him like a swarm of bees. The majority crashed or stuck to the wall behind him, but some whizzed and buzzed around his head, trailing streams of fine sticky threads that drifted like fibre-glass in the air. He gave a casual wave of his hand, as if batting them away, and they crashed with all the others against the wall.
He turned to give me an amused, slightly puzzled look.
My heart sped in my chest as my hand closed round the lumps of putty: Sticky-Sleep spells. I pulled them out, dropping the backpack and the knife, and started lobbing them at him. A couple hit the stone altar, splattering like chewing gum; one caught Bobby on the cheek and burst into a blaze of white powder. I winced; that was going to knock him out for a good eight hours—if he was still around to be knocked out, of course—but the rest slammed harmlessly to the wall behind the Earl.
‘Genevieve, did you really think those paltry little magics would affect me?’ He gave a long-suffering sigh and looked behind him at the wall. ‘And to be honest, my dear, your aim is not what it might be.’
I dropped my shoulders in defeat.
He was right; they were cheap little spells, nothing more than anyone could buy at the witches’ market. But I couldn’t think of anything else. And at least if my plan worked, it might save some of them. It was better than just giving in.
Moth-girl sat back on her heels and wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. She gave me a scared, tremulous smile, then cautiously sneered at the Earl.
He walked over to my body, laid out on the waist-high stone altar. He took careful hold of the soul-bonder knife with his thumb and forefinger and pulled it out, then placed it next to my body’s hip. I clenched my fists as an even more desperate idea came to me. If I could get to the knife ...
Then he shoved his hand inside my body’s chest and yanked out a struggling Cosette and held her up, dangling her by her neck.
‘Hello, Gwen, my dear,’ he said, this time flashing fangs as he smiled. ‘I am so delighted to meet up with you again. I was devastated after we missed each other last year—as I am sure that you must have been. It has been such an age since we last conversed, has it not?’ He snapped his fingers and Joseph’s ghost appeared, his owl-like eyes blinking behind his glasses. ‘And here is your charming son, Joseph. You have kept him out of the limelight, but I must say, I am overjoyed to make his acquaintance at last.’
Then he opened his mouth ...
I blinked—
... and they were both gone.
The Earl was now looking down at Tavish. The tranqed kelpie slept on peacefully, his gills flaring with each breath he took, one hand outstretched as if pointing towards Bobby and Rosa. I’d seen him sleep like that, nestled into the mud and sand of the riverbed.
‘A soul-taster, no less.’ The Earl smiled merrily at me. ‘My, my, there really is an abundance of riches here, is there not, my dear? The gathering of shades and souls out there—’ he waved a limp hand towards the open doorway—‘four vampires, three tasty little humans, two necromancers, a soul-taster, and a long-lost sorcerer.’ He almost sang the list, making it sound like a cheerful little Christmas carol.
Suddenly he was standing next to me.
I swallowed again, my mouth dry as dust, my throat still painful.
‘Then of course, there is you,’ he said softly. ‘But I fear we are still missing someone.’ He circled behind me, trailing a fingertip across the back of my neck. I froze, my heart stuttering in sudden terror. The snakes woke up, slithering and shivering under my skin. ‘My, you have been enterprising,’ he went on, still speaking softly. ‘It has been a long time since a sidhe has fully consumed a soul, and I do not believe one has ever consumed a soul belonging to a sorcerer—a soul that has already been marked as mine.’
‘What do you want?’ I asked, my voice harsh.
‘What do I want?’ As he leaned in to whisper in my ear a musty sulphur stench seared along my cheek. ‘I want an avatar, my dear, someone to do my business in this mortal world, someone whose body is more resilient than a human’s, someone whose body will not grow old ... Someone who will always be here for me.’
‘I am not that someone,’ I said, clenching my hands to stop from screaming.
‘No?’ He sounded thoughtful. ‘Then choose one, Genevieve.’
‘Choose one what?’
‘A soul, of course.’ He stepped back and spread his arms wide. ‘There are more than enough on offer.’
‘No.’
‘Well then, I shall take them all.’
‘W—ait a b—leedin’ minute ’ere,’ stuttered Moth-girl, stumbling to her feet, her dress fluttering like frightened wings. ‘If she ain’t gonna choose, then I get to. You c’n take me.’
‘Shut up, Moth—Sharon,’ I snapped.
‘No, I knows ’ow this works,’ she hissed. ‘If I’m willin’ to sacrifice, then he don’t get t’take any of ’em ovvers. Only fing is—’ Her voice cracked and she stopped for a moment, then went on, ‘You’ve gotta promise to look after my Daryl—’e’s smart enuff, but ’e’s a bit soft, see.’
‘All terribly commendable, I must say.’ The Earl gave her an amused, patronising smile. He leaned down to her and whispered, ‘So you’re willing to spend eternity suffering in the fiery pits of Hell to save your friends, are you?’
She gulped. ‘It ain’t a real pit, is it?’ she whispered back. ‘Me Gran allays said as ’ow it’s jus’ the vicar’s make-believe so’s we’d be good.’
‘Hell is what you make it,’ he said solemnly, then as he straightened, he chuckled. ‘Or maybe Hell is what Imake it. But unfortunately, my dear’—he touched her forehead with his finger—‘your basic information is wrong. You see, the willing sacrifice only works when you are dealing with gods, and I, luckily, am not a god, but a demon, and that whole righteous, holier-than-thou martyrdom that the willing have just takes all the profit out of the job. And thus that particular rule does not apply to me.’
‘Bleedin’ ’ell,’ Moth-girl cried, ‘so what’s the point in ’er choosin’?’
‘Trick or treat, Sharon,’ I murmured, bending down to pick up the ghost knife, then walking slowly to stand next to my body, still going over the flimsy plan in my head. Nerves twisted in my stomach; I kept expecting him to stop me—then I decided he was probably arrogant enough to let me try whatever it was I was going to do, since I couldn’t possibly win against him.
I really hoped he was wrong.
‘He wants me to think that I can save the rest by choosing just one,’ I carried on. ‘That’s the treat—but the trick is: it’s actually the other way round. Only the one I choose will live, so long as I do what he wants, of course. Isn’t that right, demon?’
‘It appears the joke is against me, my dear,’ the Earl sighed. ‘I was so looking forward to that part of the proceedings. So now I believe I will rescind my offer of a boon.’
‘’E can’t do that, can ’e?’ Moth-girl cried, frantic.
I lookedat the wall behind Rosa and Bobby. The spells caught there glowed like pinholes of light against the dark stone, their magics small and insubstantial. Was it going to be enough? Not that it made much difference; it was the only option I had. It either worked or it didn’t.
