Black London 05 - Soul Trade by authors_sort Page A

considered for a moment, exhaling a stream of smoke before setting his fag in a saucer. “Heard, sure. Rumors and the like. Heard therewas one in India. Maybe China.”
    “Morwenna said I’m the only one,” Pete blurted.
    Jack chuffed. “Morwenna’s a great idiot. She’s so blinded to the real world, all she can do is parrot that musty old legend about how the Prometheans are going to unite the Black under their banner.”
    “What would it mean?” Pete said. “If I was the only person in the world who could do this?”
    “It would make you veryfucking sought after,” Jack said. “But you know that. You’re nobody’s puppet, Pete. ’M not worried about you.”
    “They’re not as bad as I thought, honestly,” Pete murmured. “The Prometheans. Crazy, yeah, but I don’t get the sense they’d murder us in our beds.”
    “You just say that because you didn’t grow up watching them snatch your friends off the street and manipulate mages they felt were beneaththem. For fuck’s sake, Pete, they threw a bloke under a bus.”
    “He threw himself,” Pete said softly, although the memory of Preston’s terrified face did a lot to throw the smiles and polite words of Morwenna into relief.
    “Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking of taking them up on this asinine offer to join their little glee club?” Jack said, raising his eyebrow.
    “No,” Pete said. “Of coursenot. We’ll do what we have to to placate them and get back home. Like we planned.”
    “Good,” Jack said. “No place for us with people like them, Pete. They don’t have our best interest in mind. Whatever that ginger bitch Morwenna says, they just want to use us.”
    Pete sat up, irritation swelling in her. “Then why are you still here?”
    “You heard them,” Jack said. “Don’t fancy spending the rest ofmy life ducking into alleys to avoid a Promethean death squad, is all. Had a hard enough time avoiding them when I was a kid.”
    “You don’t talk about it much,” Pete said. “Being a kid.”
    “’Cause I wasn’t one,” Jack said. “I had a miserable, shitty childhood, and I’d just as soon leave it behind. All right?”
    “Fine,” Pete said softly. She didn’t know why she’d expected Jack to suddenly open up.Perhaps because with Lily, he’d have a chance at a do-over. Or maybe because she’d known him since she was sixteen, but still didn’t really know him, beyond the moment they’d met. There were still gaping holes in Jack’s life that were entirely dark to her.
    Not that she thought he kept secrets. Jack’s secrets were large and nasty and had teeth, and had a way of not staying secret for long. Itwas just that he knew nearly everything about her—her mother leaving, Connor dying, her engagement to her ex, Terry, everything in between. She knew Jack better than anyone, but his past was still almost wholly dark to her. It made for an odd relationship, the Jack she knew and the parts that remained hidden, an incomplete picture whose details she could never quite see.
    “Luv, don’t be mad,”Jack said, and kissed the top of her head. “I just don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t want to be here, but I don’t see as I have much of a choice. And that makes me itchy, and I’m sorry if I snapped at you.”
    Pete started to tell him to forget it, they had bigger things to worry about, but she found herself nodding off, and before she realized anything, it was light out and there was a knockon the door. She opened it and found another black-suited guard, a woman this time, who gestured Pete into the hall. “Breakfast is served, Miss Caldecott,” she muttered.
    Pete nodded and shut the door again, to find Jack slipping into his leather jacket. The thing was probably older than she was, and it was terribly battered, but Pete was glad Jack wore it. It was familiar and comforting. Forher part, she felt for her mobile before she realized it was missing, then stepped out empty handed. It felt odd to