Page 60 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

Pitch’s gut was a maelstrom. Gods, fucking gods. Was it Charlie’s search for Edward that had brought the pair to the Morrigan’s attention? Severs knew the lad’s connection with Silas evidently.

Pitch was going to kill Tyvain anew for this.

The doctor cleared his throat. ‘You’d both do well not to make any moves I might find disturbing, or quite dreadful things will happen in that cell to your friend.’

‘Harm him and I’ll kill you.’ The venom dripped from Silas’s words. ‘Why does he not wake? What have you done?’

‘It’s not so much what we’ve done,’ the doctor declared. ‘As what we will do, should you not cooperate. My god, we thought we may have some guests from the Order come to look for this pair…but I’m not sure the mistress herself thought we’d be so lucky as to snare one of the Horsemen. For that’s what you are, are you not, Mr Mercer? You have some type of disguise upon you to make it harder to see, but I’ve seen you close enough to be certain such a big, strapping lad can be no other.’ His gaze slid to Pitch. ‘And we know how very beautiful the daemon is…how very stuck to the ankou’s side he is these days. I dare say, beneath the illusion, you are he.’

Fucking gods, Pitch had never despised himself more. His arrogance was astonishing. Why the fuck had he not told Kaneko where they were?

He gathered himself and spoke with no hint of his agitation. ‘I’m not sure who you think yourself to be, dear chap, but a human could get themselves very hurt indeed, becoming involved in what you have.’

The doctor was human, was he not? Or had the Morrigan found a way to hide a natural’s aura just as Lady Satine had done?

‘A human likely could be hurt, you are quite right.’ The doctor smiled. ‘Now I’d like you both to hop in that cell behind you there, Mr Mercer. There will be a short wait.’

‘You can rot,’ Silas snarled.

‘No, I rather think that’s what you shall do.’

‘Listen here, you piece of foetid shit,’ Pitch said as the wildness stirred, a lazy shift of awakening. ‘I don’t like to be pissed off, and right now, you are truly pissing me off. You have exactly five seconds to unlock this gate.’

Dr Severs had the audacity to appear amused. ‘Or what, Mr Yates, is it? What will you do? I’d truly love to see it again. It is quite spectacular when a daemon loses his temper.’ Who the fuck was this bastard? ‘Perhaps you should have stayed in London as you told the bartender you were doing. Bed hopping to your heart’s content, was that not what you said, Mr Astaroth?’

It was indeed. Nearly word for word what he had told Kaneko in the phone call from the Crimson Bow. The tsukumogami truly was a turncoat? Kaneko was a miserable bastard, but he’d been at Mr Ahari’s side for hundreds of years. He was trusted implicitly by the old man. Pitch had held back their location out of sheer selfishness, a need to keep Silas and their night to himself. Not a real conviction Kaneko was the traitor. To hear it said was a punch to the guts Pitch did not need.

‘Now, how about you wander into the cell as I asked? It really would be in your friend Charlie’s best interest to do so.’

‘And it would be in yours not to threaten the lad again.’ Silas still stood at Charlie’s cell door, but the weight of his anger filled the entire corridor.

‘Come now, Mr Mercer. You went to such efforts to protect him once. We both know you’ll do nothing to jeopardise him here.’ Dr Severs tugged at a chain around his neck that had been concealed beneath the layers of his clothing. He withdrew a talon, at a wild guess Pitch would say a raven’s claw, which dangled from the fine silver chain. ‘Perhaps I just need to make this more convincing.’

Dr Severs moved out of view, down the same narrow passageway he’d stepped from when they first arrived. Pitch leaned close to the sigil-impressed bars, trying to see where the doctor had gone. He dared not touch them, for he did not fancy being knocked senseless or whatever else the sorcerers intended.

‘Over here…’ Silas hissed.

Pitch hurried the few steps it took to bring him to the ankou’s side.

‘The wall, behind Charlie,’ Silas said, his words tight. ‘There’s something off with it.’

If by ‘off’ the ankou meant it was rippling like the surface of a pond disturbed by a stone, then yes, there was definitely something off with it.

Silas shouldered the door. ‘We have to get him out of there.’ The dull thud that came despite an ankou’s angry weight told of a door not easily moved.

The rings of motion spread out, distorting the hewn stone of the wall so it appeared like sand viewed through a clear wave.

Dr Severs stepped through the epicentre, emerging from the wall like he might a parted curtain.

‘I shall ask you again, gentlemen, to step into the cell.’

Silas’s breathing stuttered. He looked to Pitch, his pupils wide with barely suppressed panic. ‘Can you do something?’

Pitch had considered drawing on the flame many times already, testing the barrier that stood between them and freedom, but Charlie was a vulnerable hostage. If Pitch made the wrong move and the lad was hurt…or killed…Silas would never forgive him.

And Edward was here too. Somewhere in this dingy, ruinous place.

‘I don’t think it’s wise.’ Pitch shook his head. ‘We don’t know what magicks they have installed here.’