Soul Trade Read Online Free PDF Page B

prickly, butshe’ll look after Lily just fine.”
    That was more than she could say for her older sister MG, or any of Jack’s crop of degenerate friends who weren’t Lawrence. Her mother, the one person in her family who hated magic and those who had anything to do with it, was the only one she could trust. Pete swiped a hand over her face and tried to look at Lawrence like everything was all right.
    “Right then,”Lawrence said, and she saw from his expression she’d failed miserably. “See you in a week or so. And Pete?” He stopped her with his free hand on her arm. Pete chewed on her lip, which was as raw as her nerves at that moment.
    “Yeah?” she said.
    “Take care of Jack for me,” Lawrence said. “He ain’t been himself since, well. Since he got himself that new ink, and that new bargain with the dark lady.”

    “I always bloody take care of him, don’t I?” Pete snapped. Lawrence didn’t deserve being yelled at, but she didn’t have the reserves to be civil any longer.
    Take care of Jack. As if anyone else would want that thankless job. She’d been taking care of Jack since the moment they’d crossed back into each other’s lives. She’d gotten him clean of drugs. She’d chased him into every godforsaken cornerof the Black as the Morrigan’s hold on him got tighter and tighter. And likely she’d chase him into the fire of Hell itself when he finally went down for good.
    She could lie to herself and pretend that wouldn’t happen, but she’d made her decision. Left her life, left everything normal, and thrown in her lot with Jack. Had a child with him, for fuck’s sake.
    That was as entwined as it got. Andif she were honest, it wasn’t as if he’d trapped her like a princess in a maze of thorns. She cared about Jack, and had for most of her life. She loved Jack, despite all his bad mistakes and bad choices. He was the only one who’d been there for her since her father died. Jack would walk through fire for her, and even when things were as bad as they were right now, she recognized the rarity of that.

    When she’d met Jack at Victoria, they hadn’t spoken much until they were on the train, and even less after they were in motion, rolling slowly through North London and picking up speed in the Midlands.
    Lawrence’s comment wouldn’t leave her alone. She cared about Jack, knew he wasn’t perfect and would never be. She wasn’t perfect either. She had ghosts and scars. But the fact was, her ghosts didn’thave teeth, and her scars weren’t inflicted by a thing like the Morrigan. Those were facts, and much as she wanted to ignore them they remained, permanent as Jack’s tattoos. He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be drawing breath, shouldn’t be walking around. He had died. Pete had watched it happen. The demon that Jack had bargained his soul to had collected and taken him to Hell. He should neverhave escaped, but he had, and when he’d died again, that should have been that. People died. Eight months visiting her da’s cancer ward had drilled that home to Pete hard and fast.
    But that hadn’t been the end, either, and when he’d escaped the clutches of the Morrigan and sent Nergal back where the demon belonged, he’d come back different.
    He wasn’t her Jack. She could pretend everything hadgone on as usual, but her Jack, the one she’d known since she was sixteen, the one with the devilish grin and the absolute disregard for anything after the next moment—that Jack had died when the demon collected his soul. When he’d returned to her after Nergal had been vanquished, he’d been different. Not someone else entirely, but as if he’d turned up with pieces missing. Part of Jack was stillwith the Morrigan, and part of the Hag rode his body in place of everything that had made him truly human.
    Pete had tried to ask him about it, once, but she’d gotten such a look from him, of murderous rage and loss and grief and fear all at once, that she’d never brought it up