My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon (22 page)

"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 her 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.

Something about the cant of the figure wasn't right, he moved like a drunk or someone who'd been dealt a blow. "Jack," she called. He didn't stir himself. "Jack!" Pete shouted to make herself heard over the popcorn guns of a black and white Western film.

"What!" he bellowed irritably. "Can't a bloke eat breakfast in peace?"

The figure emerged into the slice of vision granted by the sun, and Pete saw Roy the American staggering along the beach. Blood ran down his face, tributaries and deltas along the stark lines of his mouth and neck, and he held his hands in front of his body. His fingers and palms were crimson too. As Pete watched, rooted like an ancient oak, Roy shuddered and then fell over, curling into the fetal position and growing still.

"Bloody hell," Pete muttered, whirling and making a dash for the front door of the suite. Jack watched her go.

"What's the matter, then?"

"That American bloke from last night," she panted, jerking on her shoes. "I think someone's killed him."

ROY'S BODY LAY IN THE SAND LIKE A broken marionette, blood patching the earth a darker brown. Pete skidded down the half-rotted wooden steps the hotel provided as access, and felt the wet sand suck at her feet as she dashed for Roy. Jack appeared behind her, like he sometimes did, panting like he'd just run a hundred meters.

"Call an ambulance!" Pete yelled over her shoulder. The ever-present fog dampened her shout, thinned it so that it remained trapped beside her. The hotel and the rest of the beach disappeared as the wind picked up and it was just herself and Roy's mangled form.

Jack appeared, hair like a spiked sun. "Pete. Don't touch him!"

Pete skidded to a stop, going to her knees next to the body. Seawater soaked through her trousers. The tide was coming in, and a crab with an extra claw protruding from its back scuttled through the mushy pool Roy's blood made. Jack dropped beside her and pulled back her wrist just before she felt for Roy's pulse. "Look."

An iron shackle was locked around Roy's neck, dug deep and sharp enough into the skin to form a necklace of blood droplets. The shackle was like nothing Pete had ever seen, metal holding a shine, forged with curling, roiling designs that caused the point between her eyes to ache. The broken end of an equally foreign chain link dangled from the collar.

"Bloody hell," said Pete, because anything else would have been insufficient. Jack wrapped the end of his t-shirt around his hand and flipped Roy's body over onto its back. What Pete had taken for cuts on his cheeks were more like
burns
, like something thin and coated in acid had taken Roy's face in its hands. But not hands. Diamond-shaped markings bubbled where the… where whatever it was had touched him. "He's been kissed by the Black, luv," said Jack, brushing his hand off. "Touch might transfer it. Just looking out for you."

Pete swallowed as she met Roy's open eyes. The magic was so thick around him, it choked the air out of her, and she let Jack pull her away. "All right?"

Laughing, Pete shook her head. "How would I bloody be all right? He was alive not twelve hours ago. Him and his silly bint of a wife." Her gut twisted, nothing to do with the dark energy around them. "Oh, God. Where's the wife?"

Jack conjured a Parliament and lit it, drawing deep before he said, "That thing you feel, like congealed grease on skin, is sacrificial blood magic. Old Roy's soul is half out of his body, waiting to be called as power in someone's ritual. Poor sod."

Pete looked down at Roy again, thought of dark wet things and mist-hidden shadows. "Who would do something like this?"

"A sorcerer," said Jack, flicking his cigarette away. The wind brought it back and spread embers across the sand. "A practitioner of black arts attempting to call something from the otherworld. Unusual that they'd just take two, even if this bloke did manage to get away. Usually sacrifices are threes, or sevens. Darkness loves the prime numbers, you know."

"Henrietta," said Pete, the woman's shattered eyes and disconnected ramblings jumping back to forefront. "That crazy bird from the restaurant last night. She said that something had stolen her husband."

Jack rubbed his chin, making a sandpaper sound against his morning shadow. "Three bodies needed, then, and they used old Roy's soul as kindling for the fire." He paced around the body, muttering. "Not phases of the moon. Not a demon. Might be amateurs. Chanting naked, bathing in blood. Some stupid shite like that."

"This is not an amateur anything," said Pete, pointing at Roy. "We have to call the police. Then we have to find Charlotte."

"What are you on about? What sodding
we
?" Jack asked. " 'M staying right here, in me honeymoon suite. Let the coppers sort it out. Always fun to watch you lot try and figure out creatures of the Black."